


Searching For Superman

by MonoclePony



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jean with issues, M/M, Marco having a hero complex as big as Mars, Single Parents, fluff at times, lot of angst for a lotta people, lots of sexual tension hoboy, marcoxeren moments, near misses, past Marco/Mikasa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 316,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2286396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonoclePony/pseuds/MonoclePony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco Bodt has a problem. He has the biggest hero complex out there, and though it gains him friends he isn’t thought of kindly by the police: they don’t appreciate a scruffy wannabe bohemian trying to do their job. He helps people, and then he vanishes. But when he saves a rather hostile man from being mowed down by an over-enthusiastic bus driver on the streets of Trost, he doesn’t get the reaction he expects. He gets shouted at for helping, for saving, and realises that sometimes people don’t want to be saved, or worse still, don’t think they should be. </p><p>He also begins to find that no matter how hard he tries, he can't pull himself away from the one person who destroyed his universe... and then put it together again.</p><p>One thing's for certain: it's going to be a hard pill to swallow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Big Yellow Taxi

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! This is a little different from my last fic, No Reins, mainly because there are no horses to speak of and also because it's probably going to get a hell of a lot angstier. You're in for a fun ride guys, but don't worry, I'll be there sobbing along with you <3  
> This chapter's pretty long, I have a feeling long chapters are my thing now (whoops) but a lot needed to be said. I hope you enjoy this (it's been a plot baby for quite some time- now it finally gets to spread its wings!) and feedback is, as always, super appreciated. :) x

Some people like to know what others think of them. It’s a rather selfish desire, really; they need to make sure they have made such a mark on the world that lots of people can surround it and point rudely, claiming it as theirs and theirs alone. They need to know what they would be remembered for, whether they would be a blip on the horizon or standing squarely in the foreground of someone’s mind. For a while, Marco Bodt didn’t know what he would be remembered for- he was pretty unremarkable, all things considered. He wasn’t a genius, or talented or special. But then something happened. And, well…

The people of Trost started to know him.

He wasn’t born on another planet, he wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider and he wasn’t involved in a strange scientific accident. He didn’t have any particularly incredible powers- none he was aware of, at least- and he didn’t have a specially designed vehicle to drive around in.

But the point still stands that whenever anyone who knew Marco Bodt was asked what they thought of him, what they knew about him, they would all have the same answer.

“He helps people.”

Those three little insignificant words defined him. They made him whole, and filled in the corners of his otherwise normal existence. He knew his legacy, however small. So why was Marco, ‘he helps people’ Bodt being slammed against the wall of a tired looking office block in the streets of downtown Trost?

His guess was as good as anyone’s.

But he had a pretty good idea that it was because of the vibrantly red handbag swinging from his clenched fist.

He gave a gentle grunt of pain at the treatment, and blinked furiously as the figures of two out of breath and very angry police officers swam in front of his eyes. He tried to move away but found that it was more difficult than he expected. The wind had been well and truly knocked out of him, and trying to squint at the officers through a vague mesh of dark hair was just as hard as breathing. God, he needed to get it cut.

“Stay where you are,” one growled.

Marco blinked blearily at him, trying to stop the colour from shifting like oil on water. He didn’t manage it. “Couldn’t move if I tried, officer,” he replied honestly.

“Shut the fuck up!”

He got a shove for his trouble, and the world reeled. _It was nice to know that politeness was appreciated by Trost’s thin blue line_ , he thought with a pained smile.

“Don’t you fucking sneer at me, you bastard,” the other snarled. Marco wanted to roll his eyes, but resisted. That probably would have got him a ride in their car at least. He realised that he was being pinned in place by a meaty paw of a hand, and the way it was shoved rudely against his chest made it feel as though its owner wanted to sink it in further, to clutch at Marco’s rapidly beating heart and give it a squeeze. His head was still throbbing angrily, and his eyes shut at the pain. Ouch.

“S-stop! Officers!”

Marco opened an eye to see a ruffled woman rushing towards them, owl- eyed and mouth open like the Edvard Munchpainting. He blinked hard as she reached them, panting and clutching her chest.  

“Keep out of this, lady. None of your business,” the officer not pinning Marco to the wall sneered.

“Of course it’s my business! That’s my bag!” she said. That got their attention. The pressure on Marco’s chest lessened a fraction as both officers turned to the hapless woman. “Someone took it,” she explained wretchedly, “and this man chased them down for me.”

The pressure on his chest vanished completely. He hadn’t even realised he’d been hoisted a few inches higher than his usual height until his feet jarred uncomfortably on the pavement. He winced.

“This true?” an officer demanded. Marco wasn’t sure which one; the hair in his eyes weren’t helping, and he was also making an effort to avoid prolonged eye contact with them both.

He instead focused on the woman in front of them, and gave a cordial, if not weak, smile and held out the large red handbag. His hand was still shaking with excess adrenaline; it was fizzing through him like lemonade, dulling the pain and sharpening it all at once. “The guy took off, but… here you go. He didn’t take anything,” he said softly. The woman stepped forward, lower lip threatening to tremble, and Marco kept his smile polite. She looked like an office worker- most Trost goers were- but her ruined hair and emotional face broke the façade. Seeing someone so professional lose themselves was a strange sort of relief to Marco- it meant they were human, behind it all. She seemed hesitant, so Marco reached the bag out a little farther, his smile only growing. “Take it,” he prompted soothingly. “It’s okay.”

She took it. She cradled it to her chest like a child, and Marco could tell she was trying to keep the rest of her emotions in check. “Bless you,” she said. “Bless you, boy.”

Marco smiled. The way she said those words made his chest infinitely lighter. “It was no trouble.”

Then he got a gruff complaint and a rough shove back onto the main walkway. “Keep walking, hero,” one officer snapped. Marco stumbled to catch his balance, but recovered quick enough to miss falling completely and smacking his face on the concrete. He was used to it. He made a point of not looking back. With a small sigh, he righted the fall of his jacket and continued on into the eyeless mass of Trost.

Marco Bodt: he helps people.

Except the police, who in Marco’s opinion were about as useless as they came. They were far too busy- though what they were busy _doing_ he wasn’t sure.

 _Still_ , he thought to himself as he manoeuvred around the streets with a suspected concussion, _someone had to do their job for them._

He nudged his way through the milling traffic of bodies, smiling whenever he caught someone’s eye. Not many smiled back. He didn’t blame them. He probably looked the criminal type at times, especially today with his messy black hair, battered leather jacket that was so old it was hanging off of him like a great brown carcass, and the scar on his brow in plain sight. Ah, the scar. Now that was a talking point at parties. It was only white flesh now, no blood or gore to speak of, but it was still there, stark against his skin like a calling card. Marco often referred to it as the Marmite Scar: people either loved it or hated it. He was indifferent, very much like his taste in Marmite. It was a good thing the freckles cancelled out the scar most of the time.

He shook his hair out of his face, again cursing the fact that he had been both too lazy and too poor to get it cut the week before, and crossed the road with the human traffic. His roommate had suggested he tie it up in a little ponytail on the top of his head. He never took advice from his roommate. Before he had gotten himself caught up in another ‘good deed’ mission, he had been going to meet her: she had a hospital appointment planned, and he was going for emotional support. He was pretty sure that his break wasn’t going to last much longer, but that was the perk of half-owning a shop: you could take as long a break as you liked. And Sasha didn’t work that far away, anyway.

He checked his phone as he walked, and saw that she had texted him an hour ago demanding, ‘FAIR TRADE TOMATO JUICE NOW IT HAS BEEN COMMANDED OF ME’, so with a chuckle he ducked into the first place he thought likely to stock it and came out moments later partly successful. It was organic. That was close enough.

His head was still spinning a little from the way the police had rattled him about, and Marco let out a sigh as he waited for the lights to change. One day, the police would get so annoyed at him doing their jobs for them they would lock him up. Throw away the key, perhaps. They might even see his attempts to help people as some kind of protest. Marco wasn’t sure, but he knew he would have to be careful- helping people could lead to trouble, especially in Trost. Knife and gun crime was on the rise day by day, and Marco never wanted to have either pointed at him any time soon. Maybe it was a problem he had, he thought as he shifted from foot to foot impatiently, this helping people. Was it a problem to constantly get involved in people’s times of need? It was like an instinct to him; if someone was in trouble, he would go to help. It was as simple as that. Marco was often called a good person by his friends, but Marco himself wasn’t so sure. He definitely didn’t like the way ‘hero’ was spat at him like a bad word.

He was still in thought when the lights changed, so much so that he almost missed the opportunity to cross. The disgruntled people behind him jarred him out of his thoughts. “Sorry!” he said cheerfully to them, but he might as well have sworn at them by the looks on their faces. He shrugged to himself and picked up the pace. Sasha would be waiting for him if he wasn’t careful.

The last road he had to cross was usually busy. A lot of people would ignore the traffic signals and just run for it, like wildebeest across a river, and there was safety in numbers; cars would slow down even if the light was green if there was a bunch of people trotting across the road. Today there weren’t many people waiting, and Marco didn’t feel up for playing chicken with an urban Land Rover. He waited, and huffed when he saw a large red bus coming into view- there was no way he was going to risk messing with that either- and that was when it happened.

The guy came out of nowhere. That’s what they always said on eyewitness accounts, Marco knew, but it was true. He genuinely did. It was as though he’d suddenly materialised on the pavement right next to Marco, Trost’s very own wizard, and then he was just striding out into the road.

Into the path of the oncoming bus.

Marco’s instinct kicked in.

He could have just hooked the guy’s collar with a finger and gently tugged him backwards and out of danger. He could have been coy about it, and just called out a warning, even. But no. The bag of tomato juice hit the pavement with a heavy sounding _thunk_ as he grabbed the two narrow shoulders and yanked. For a second, only a second, the body resisted him, until the guy’s own instinct seemed to synchronise with Marco’s. The bus bellowed a warning, the horn blowing a hole in whatever part of Marco’s brain was left after being almost shaken out by the police, but he was clear. They both were.

Marco felt all his breath returning to his lungs as the red monster passed, hissing in distress, and only then realised that he still had the guy in a vice-like grip. He could feel the resistance again, and released him in an instant, smiling at the ground. “Sorry, but that bus wasn’t going to stop. That was a close call, you should be more careful.”

He expected a thank you, or maybe just a grunt of recognition, at least. What he didn’t expect was what he actually got.

“What the fuck was that?”

Marco froze. The smile fell off his face and shattered when he looked up- and saw a pair of furious tawny eyes staring back at him. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his chest, his heart clenched. He hadn’t felt something like that in a long while. For a moment- just a moment- he let himself stop and look. “Thomas?” he found himself asking. The word was bitter on his tongue and before he could stop it, it came tumbling out. It ached to hear it on his voice. It _hurt_.

“What?” the guy hissed. It was venomous. “Who the fuck’s Thomas?”

Marco saw his mistake. It would always be a mistake, he knew that, it was impossible, but… still. This man was shorter, thinner, angular. Every shape he cut was full of edges, like his body would cut anyone who tried to be near him. Even the hoodie he was wearing didn’t help hide the fact that he was painfully skinny; the hood was drawn up to shield his hair from view, though the parts that were peeking out at Marco were pale, ashy blonde that were almost grey. The snarl on his lips was that of a cornered animal, an animal that didn’t want to be messed with, but the eyes… those _eyes…_

Marco realised he’d stared for too long. He lowered his hands down, eyes darting around to find where his bag had got to. Sasha really would kill him if he arrived empty-handed. “I’m sorry,” he began, still looking around the gathered feet, “I thought you were-”

“Yeah, clearly.” There was a snort that sent Marco’s gaze flying up to meet the tawny ones again. They still looked furious. “Look, I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but just… leave me the fuck alone. Mind your own fucking business, alright?”

Marco wanted to retort that if he’d done that, the guy wouldn’t be alive to shout at him, but he guessed that it probably wasn’t the best idea. He was a little taken aback by just how _angry_ this guy was; it was as though he would rather have been hit by the bus than to descend to the level of accepting help from a stranger. He opened his mouth to say something- he hoped something would come out on the way, as at that moment he had nothing- but the guy didn’t give him the chance. The light changed and he was away, hands thrust in his battered jeans pockets and gaze firmly fixed on the ground. Marco stared after him until the bony frame was lost in the milling crowd, swallowed like driftwood in a harsh sea. That had been a reaction he wasn’t used to. He’d had wordless thanks, unsmiling nods as people rushed to work, but never a full on ‘get the hell away from me’ comment. He shrugged, and tried not to let it get to him. He almost didn’t notice the bag nudged gently into his side by an old woman. He smiled, thanked her and continued on his way.

All thoughts of the rude stranger vanished, albeit temporarily, when Marco turned the corner and found what- and who- he was looking for. A cheery looking little yellow shop assaulted his sight as he stepped a little closer, a buzzing bee on the door proclaiming that they were ‘open come rain or shine!’ and the outdoor displays were full of the most gorgeous flower arrangements Marco had ever seen. ‘Bean Florists’ was the cute name for the cute shop, and the more Marco squinted, the more colour he saw. He quickly spotted the ‘who’ he’d been looking for, and sped up, a smile springing onto his face.

Sasha Braus was stood watering a selection of carnations, wearing the dungarees she’d strutted out of their modest apartment in that morning. The little bee on her chest was the job’s addition. She caught sight of him the moment she turned to set the watering can down, and the wave she gave him was so energetic it nearly knocked the hat off of a woman exiting the shop with a bouquet of lilies. Sasha ignored the stinking look she was given.

“Marco!” she cried, practically bouncing on her feet as he neared her, and flung her arms around him. Marco let out a small choking noise at the contact, and felt the taut skin of her belly against his own.

“It’s almost as though I was gone all day,” he teased, pulling away to flash a beaming smile.

“You’re a cute one, Marco Bodt,” Sasha laughed, tapping him on the nose with a playful finger. “Do you have the provisions?”

He shook the bag. Sasha cheered.

“We’ll have to get a taxi,” Marco said as they set off, Sasha bidding farewell to her manager without a second’s glance, “because Bertha didn’t want to start this morning.”

“Aw no, not Bertha!” Sasha looked genuinely stricken at the news, and Marco shrugged.

“Eh, she’s done it before. It’s the change in season, it gets to her sometimes. Besides,” he raised a brow at her, “I don’t think you should be riding her in your condition.”

“What condition?” Sasha shot back, curling her tongue against her teeth. “Come on Marco, when did you start becoming my mother?”

“Since I started worrying about you. Which has been forever. So maybe I’ve been your mother for that long too.” Marco made a face. “Ugh, now there’s a thought.”

“Hey!” Sasha bumped him with her hip as she signalled for a taxi. “How’s your day been anywho? Sold anything interesting? Got anything interesting? Fixed some stuff?”

Marco rolled his eyes. “It was normal. But I, uh, got a little…”

He didn’t have to say it. Sasha knew. She let out a good-natured little huff and folded her arms, waiting for her hailed taxi to meander its way through the traffic to where they stood on the pavement. “You’re too nice for your own good, you know,” she said. “Any normal person would just let it go. Let it pass. You don’t have to be nice to everyone- just to those you think are important.”

Marco shrugged. “I think everyone’s important.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” 

She ushered Marco into the backseat before hopping less elegantly in after him. “Trost Central,” she called out to their driver, and they were off. Marco tried not to show the way his heart jolted at the name.

He swallowed dryly and instead took to looking out the window at the blurs of people and places that passed by. Sasha tried to take a swig of the tomato juice without getting spotted. She sulked when their driver narrowed his eyes in the front mirror. She then went on to chatter about a customer who had ordered a massive bouquet of violets when they weren’t in season and what a hassle it was going to be to get them, but Marco hardly heard her. He didn’t mean to ignore her, not really, but his nerves seemed to be working against him. He nodded in all the right places, making noises of sympathy whenever she gestured wildly and finished a sentence with an incensed, “y’know?!” as if it was the most outrageous thing in the world. He soon realised he was looking for tawny eyes in the faces passing by to take his mind off of his churning stomach. _So much for not letting it get to you,_ he thought to himself snidely.

He mentally slapped himself. It didn’t matter, he tried to tell himself. _Didn’t matter, didn’t matter, didn’t matter._ But wasn’t convincing enough. He wanted to confront the guy, he realised: he wanted to ask him what he had against people that saved him from buses. What was the guy’s problem? Marco realised that _he_ was angry, yes, but angry with confusion- because this annoyed stranger with tawny eyes didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t understand, and it was maddening. He bit the inside of his cheek to stifle the frustrated noise he made in the back of his throat.

Sasha noticed. “You okay?”

He blinked. “Uh?”

“Earth to Marco?” she tittered. “You were miles away. What’s up?”

Marco debated on telling her. He really did. But something reminded him that she probably wouldn’t sympathise, and another something added that she would probably think him a bit of a sad case. So he smiled absently and gave her a little shrug. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “It’s nothing.”

Trost Central hospital wasn’t far from the city’s heart, so the taxi fare wasn’t too steep- something Marco was immensely grateful for. He also knew the exact way the driver was taking them was the long way around; he could have gotten there in half the time. He knew the way. His leg didn’t stop jiggling as they took the final turn, his heart jolting yet again as he tried to keep as normal as he could. _It was strange to think of what constituted normal until you had to pretend you were_ , Marco thought to himself. He felt Sasha’s hand encase his before he could twitch it away. “I know,” she said softly, “I don’t like hospitals either.”

Marco slid his eyes shut and rested his forehead against the window, the cool glass a relief. Sasha didn’t know, he reminded himself, and didn’t need to. She didn’t know that Marco knew the hospital backwards, its innermost workings etched into his mind from the endless visits, but it didn’t matter. This was about her, not him, and he could do it. He could. He could do it without remembering a thing. He pressed his head closer. Sasha’s hand didn’t leave his, not even when it became clammy and shaking. He could feel a headache coming on.

Going up the stairs and turning left was a new experience for him- for starters, it didn’t send his pulse thudding against his chest. It also meant he wouldn’t bump into anyone who would look on him in sympathy; it had been years now, but people knew. Sometimes he thought it was obvious, like he walked around with it sat on his shoulders. Grief had a funny way of doing that. The families they passed were happy, hopeful, glowing. Those were the smiles that got returned. Sasha’s grip, however, only grew tighter. Marco leant in close. “It’s going to be fine,” he whispered, sharing a smile with a man they passed by.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sasha said. “You’re a bystander. You get the easy bit.”

They dropped into the nearest available chairs in the waiting room, their hands still joined together. Marco fished around one-handed for a magazine he hadn’t already read from cover to cover on the table in front of them, but finding nothing slumped back in his seat. Sasha had begun to look a little pale with nerves.

“Bearing the brunt of your mood swings counts as easy?” He chuckled at the indignant look Sasha sent him, and shrugged easily. “You’ve had this done before, and you said it was no big deal. You don’t have to be nervous.”

“But that was a few weeks ago! What if something’s changed?” She looked down at her barely concealed carton of juice and frowned. “I want juice.”

“I don’t think they’ll let you.”

“Marco Bodt, I want my tomato juice and I am drinking my tomato juice right this second.”

“Alright, alright, sorry I said anything. Don’t blame me if the hospital police come after you.”

Sasha took a swig. A nurse gave her a filthy look. She drank more.

It was true that Marco hated hospitals, but when a merrily rotund nurse popped her head around her door and called out Sasha’s name he couldn’t help but smile with her. Everyone was happy. Everyone was okay. Nobody was going to die on this ward. Sasha jumped up out of her seat like it was toasted with hot coals, and pulled Marco in her wake. “Is it okay if he comes in too?” she asked in earnest. The little nurse chuckled and said that it was absolutely fine with her.

“Are you Miss Braus’s partner?” she asked when they walked into the small, brightly- lit room. “You make a very lovely couple.”

“Oh, er, no, I’m not,” Marco said, feeling the heat creep up to his cheeks. “I’m just her roommate.” Who was currently getting his hand crushed in gratitude. That sort of roommate.

“He’s not _just_ anything,” Sasha said as she got comfortable on the examination table. “He’s my rock. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“Well, that’s very sweet,” the nurse said, casting Marco a kind smile. “There’s not a long of young men who would do that, I’ll tell you now.”

Marco heard Sasha mutter a short, “tell me something I don’t know,” and was forced to cover up his sniggers when the nurse asked her to remove her top. It hardly bothered him; living together meant that they had seen each other naked too many times for it to be a thing of embarrassment or awkwardness. Sasha had to fiddle around with the dungaree clasps (remaining adamant that no, Marco would _not_ help her) until her top was pushed up and the jelly was being applied. Sasha giggled at how cold it was.

It was Marco’s turn to squeeze her hand when the nurse put the tiny little instrument on her slicked stomach, rolling it around for a moment to get the right picture on the small screen in front of her. Then, with a small ‘aha!’ and a beaming smile, she turned it to face them. And there, doing an excellent impression of a large jellybean, was a shape that made Sasha’s breath rush out all at once and Marco’s catch in his throat. “Here’s your baby, Miss Braus,” the nurse said.

Sasha bit her lip as she stared at the screen. “H-has… has it still got all the right number of arms and legs?” she asked.

The nurse laughed. “Yes, it’s perfectly healthy, just the right size for 18 weeks. You’ve made quite the little home there for it- it’s growing really well.”

“A-are you sure?” Sasha asked weakly.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, sweetie. You have a very healthy child.”

Sasha’s lip flushed red at the strength of her bite. Marco stroked the back of her hand with a thumb, smiling ever so slightly. The monitor had it there, in black and white, and he couldn’t quite believe it. He was sure that Sasha couldn’t believe it either, from the way she was staring. Her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them, and he could see them welling with tears as she furiously dabbed at them with her free hand. He hushed her softly, leaning over to plant a kiss on her forehead. “You okay?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. It’s just…” she let out a little hiccoughing sob, “it’s so tiny.”

“I know.”

“I never thought it would be that tiny.”

“Me neither.”

Sasha turned her head towards Marco, her eyes full of worry. “Marco, I don’t know if I can do this.”

Marco frowned. He had heard this before. Sasha had her bad days, and ever since that fateful day with Marco sat with his back to the bathroom door and Sasha sobbing at the test in her hand, the insecurities were numerous. He scooted closer. “Of course you can,” he murmured, kissing her forehead again. “You’ll be fine. I know you will. And you have so many people around you.”

Sasha hiccoughed again and turned her attention back to the screen. “I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl,” she mumbled.

“Do you have any names?” the nurse asked. She’d re-entered the room with the prints of the scan, and handed them to Marco with a smile.

Sasha looked back at the monitor, watching the tiny little heartbeat inside her, and for a moment Marco thought she was so genuinely overcome with emotion that she couldn’t respond. Then she smiled, a fleeting and beautiful smile that settled Marco’s stomach. “I think Destroyer has a nice ring to it,” she said, completely straight faced.

Marco nodded. “Oh yes, definitely. May I suggest the title Lieutenant?”

“An excellent suggestion.”

They were still giggling to themselves when the nurse scuttled away, confused at the pair of young people calling out new and bizarre names at each other and snorting at the answers. They stumbled out of the hospital a while later, clutching hold of the fuzzy photographs like their lives depended on it. And, for the longest time, the grumpy stranger ran from view and back into the crowd in Marco’s mind.

* * *

 

Half a shift later, after closing shop, Marco was remarkably early for another meeting. Sasha had ben texting him throughout the day with potential names for her unborn child, and the last one, ‘Terraburpanator’, actually made him laugh as he locked up. He made the short walk to the where his motorbike was leaning against the wall of the shop, throwing his keys up in the air and catching them deftly whilst whistling a tune he wasn’t sure he remembered. His motorbike was a battered old red, and christened ‘Bertha’ by Sasha. It had only given him the ten minutes’ drive to work before it spluttered to a halt, but Marco believed in her.

“C’mon baby, work,” he hissed, giving the ignition an experimental twist. The old machine coughed feebly, but there was nothing to suggest she was coming to life. “Ugh, for the love of-” Marco couldn’t afford to get her fixed- he hoped it was just something he could fix himself. “Well, looks like I’ll have to leave you here for the night,” he muttered, brows drawing together as he frowned down at the bike. He didn’t like it, but he guessed he had no choice. He was still fiddling with the locks when he heard footsteps. He glanced up out of habit- and promptly snapped up straight.

It was the grumpy stranger. He had two friends flanking him this time, but it was him. Marco couldn’t help but gawp at him as the annoyance came back to the surface. His hoodie was non-existent now; he was instead wearing a button up shirt, plaid and rolled up to the elbow, and hands still shoved in his pockets. Now Marco could see the ash blonde hair tapered down into a far darker undercut, and the thicker sections fell a little wildly around his face. He looked tired, Marco noted as he watched him ignore the conversation his friends were having either side of him. Very tired. His eyes were cast on the floor, shoulders bunched up like he was trying to become as small as possible, and it suddenly occurred to Marco how very vulnerable he looked. Maybe that was why he hadn’t wanted to be helped; he was used to people assuming that he needed looking out for.

Marco debated on going over for a split second to confront him, the jolt of familiarity blinding him to common sense, but then he turned and finished locking up Bertha. _Don’t get involved in other people’s business,_ he thought with a sigh. _He’s not jumping in front of a bus now. He doesn’t need help. Leave him be, like the others._

For once, he listened to his own advice.

He stepped away from his bike, praying it would be okay for the night, and drew his jacket tighter about him with the sudden chill that swept through the streets. He began to walk out onto the main road, and then realised something. Undercut was walking in the same direction as he was. Marco hated fate sometimes; it had to be involved in the way that the one person who confused him beyond belief was the one that didn’t seem to want to vanish, literally and figuratively. He wondered if it would go a step further and make it so that the guy lived next door to him, or took the same route to work. He kicked a bottle top with enough force to send it skidding away. _Yeah, fate could be a bitch._

Thankfully, Undercut didn’t look up once- not even when one of his friends gave him a playful shove. He didn’t shove them back, didn’t step aside, didn’t even bark out a curse. He didn’t even smile…

 _No._ Marco wrenched his gaze away. _I am not going to go there. I am not creeping on the bastard. No way._ He would not care. He couldn’t care. Undercut stranger could go through the rest of his life being grouchy and proud and a stranger, and Marco would be fine with that. _Because I don’t care._

Fortunately, Undercut took a left with his cronies whilst Marco carried on along the street, and he felt himself relax a fraction. At least he could stop fighting with his own twisted sense of judgement. “And good riddance,” he muttered, and cringed at how pathetic he sounded. _Priorities, Marco, priorities._ Especially as he was now not as early as he thought he would be. He sped up, his distraction gone. He didn’t want to keep her waiting.

* * *

 

They had their usual reservation.

The Maria Restaurant pretty much kept it wide open for them every week, just in case they decided to show up- and they always did. The Maria was the restaurant they had gone to on their first date, and it was sort of an unspoken tradition between them nowadays. The outdoors was lit up like a beacon, with diners under small red canopies looking out at the less than beautiful street they were faced with, and muttering that it was only ‘because of the food’ they remained loyal to the place. The Maria was full of regulars, and that was something Marco was grateful for.

Marco’s pace picked up as he crossed the road. He had ended up running late. That wasn’t a good start. He was always the early one- she would know something was wrong. He checked his phone, and sure enough…

**_Three missed calls: Mikasassa._ **

_Shit._

His gaze flicked up in time to see her in their seat, the one by the window so they could people- watch as subtly as possible, and she looked like she was in the middle of composing a very long text. The customary red scarf was wrapped haphazardly around her throat, the only flash of colour on her except her violently scarlet lips. New lipstick. He was pretty sure he’d gotten her that. The rest of her was cloaked in black, from her elegantly simple long-sleeve top to her figure-hugging jeans and boots. All black. All sombre. Some people never changed; they were stuck in constant winter. Mikasa was a winter girl. He shoved his hands in his pockets sheepishly and wandered through the door that was as red as the awnings that hung over the outdoor customers.

He got a number of friendly smiles from waiters as he practically power-walked down the lines of tables to the one he was looking for, nearly up-ending a bowl of soup on some poor old dear’s head. “S-sorry!” he cried out of habit, and slapped a hand to his mouth. _Oh no. She’d hear that._

And sure enough, Mikasa’s body straightened up. She turned her head. Her eyes flashed.

Marco inwardly bid farewell to any hope of ever having children.

He gave a weak grin to the spluttering pensioner and made a beeline for Mikasa, hands still firmly shoved in his pockets. “Eh heh heh, so I got a little held up,” he said in greeting as she rose from her seat.

She arched a thinly pencilled brow at him. But then, she smiled thinly. “You took your time. I ordered for you, I assume you wanted the same as always?”

Marco nodded. “Chicken Saltimbocca?” When Mikasa’s smile grew into a more genuine one, he let out a sigh of relief. “You know me so well.”

“If I didn’t it’d be a crime.” Mikasa took a step forward and hugged him briefly, to the muffled ‘aw’s from the surrounding staff. The Maria didn’t have a short staff turnaround, and most of them knew Marco and Mikasa personally. They thought they were an adorable couple. “How you been?” she asked into Marco’s collar. “You still more into guys?”

Marco rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Yep. What about you, still shamelessly lusting after no one in particular?”

“Better believe it.” They pulled away with identical grins. Marco’s heart still skipped to see her grin like that. Seeing it had been such a delayed thing, after all. “You better have a good excuse for almost standing me up, Bodt,” Mikasa said, returning to their table, “and if you almost got arrested again, don’t tell me. I’ll owe Annie money I can’t afford to give, and ignorance is bliss sometimes.”

Marco chuckled, taking his own seat. “Oh, you have no idea.” The table was decked out as it usually was, with a red tablecloth and a large vase with a selection of cheerful yellow flowers, and Mikasa had already taken one flower out and begun playing with its petals. He glanced at the pink bottle on their table and quirked a brow. “Wine? Did someone die?”

“Marco!” She looked scandalised at the comment, and Marco felt consciousness steal over him. It seemed as though he couldn’t make jokes like that without people expecting him to keel over.

“Mikasa,” he said steadily. “We’ve come here every week for two years, and you’ve only bought a bottle of wine _once_.” He didn’t like to think about when that was.

“You were late,” Mikasa explained, “I had to entertain myself somehow.” She ducked at the crouton Marco flicked in her direction and let out a breathy cackle. “So come on,” she said, leaning onto the table and giving Marco the most serious expression she could muster despite the fact he was still trying to land a crouton down her top. “Tell me everything, _dear._ ”

Marco held his fire and blinked owlishly up at her. Mikasa was different to the others; not only were they close, they were _closer_ than most of his friends had ever been, and that intimacy between them wasn’t forgotten by either of them. Even now, years later, there was still a crackling promise of tension that hovered relentlessly whenever they met, but Marco always shrugged it off as being nothing more than an aftershock of an earthquake. That aftershock, far from making things awkward and complicated between them, smoothed things out and made them more comfortable than it had ever been when they were actually dating. The fear of rejection and the unknown was gone now, buried under the table they sat at, and it made talking so much easier. Marco could tell Mikasa anything without any fear of being judged, and far more than he could tell most other people. Some of the things he told Mikasa, he thought, would shock even Sasha into silence. So, instead of holding back like he’d done with Sasha, he just let it blurt out.

“I met an asshole today.”

Mikasa blinked back at him. “Well, I didn’t expect to hear that.”

Marco huffed. “Well, I didn’t expect to experience it, but here I am.”

“What sort of asshole we talking?” Mikasa propped her head up with a hand calmly. “A pure, undiluted, bona fide asshole? Or a miniscule, microscopic one that managed to get under your skin?”

“Er…” Marco frowned. “I’m not sure, actually.”

“Okay, so tell me. What was it about him that was so asshole-y?”

So Marco told her. He told her everything, how he had just recovered from being almost arrested for the thirteenth time that month (“I fucking knew it”, she’d groaned), how he had stopped him from being run over and the mouthful he had got in return. “It’s not like I expected a pat on the back or even a thank you,” Marco finished, “but I didn’t really think anyone would be angry about me helping them.” He took a sip of the wine Mikasa had poured out for him, and recognised the taste of strawberry.

Mikasa didn’t answer for a few minutes. It took just enough time for their food to arrive and for Marco to start toying with the cutlery, wondering if it would be rude to start without her, before she spoke. “Marco, remember we talked about this?” she said in a lower tone of voice.

He paused, fork hovering in mid-air. “Talked about what?”

“The saving people thing.” Mikasa twirled her wine glass between her fingers, the rosy glow of the drink contrasting vividly with the paleness of her skin. “I know you think it does some good, but honestly sometimes it does more harm than anything else.”

“Are you saying that I should have let that woman get her bag stolen?” Marco frowned.

A pained expression crossed Mikasa’s face. “Not exactly. Just…” She sighed. “Marco, when we first met you hadn’t been in Trost long. You’re not a local. You don’t know the way this city ticks. I do, and I know that this place is dark and full of bad, evil people. And when a place has so much bad in it, it even starts to treat the good as something to be cautious of.” She took a quick gulp of her wine. “You’re a good guy, Marco, a really good guy, but you’re stuck in a bad city. If you’re not careful, you could get…”

“I know I could get arrested,” Marco sighed, slumping back in his chair. “I know the police hate me, I know I have a record and I know that they keep an eye on me. But, if someone needs help, I can’t help it. The police aren’t ever there, Mikasa, haven’t you ever noticed that?”

She didn’t respond, merely twirled her glass again. She glanced down at Marco’s plate, and then back at him. Marco didn’t ignore the fact that her gaze hovered on his scar for a touch too long. “You should eat. I bet you didn’t have lunch today.”

Marco tried to stare her down and failed. Mikasa’s eyes soon turned stony until he began to eat, and then they softened again, back to their raincloud normality. He thought that that was the end of the conversation, until Mikasa spoke up again. This time it was small, sad even. “That’s the other thing, Marco. This guy might have gotten so angry because he didn’t want to be saved. Some people don’t, and I know that’s hard to grasp but… if they’re in that sort of mind-set, it’s difficult to get them out of it.”

Marco swallowed his mouthful. He hadn’t thought about it like that; he hoped that wasn’t the case, because with the amount of anger Undercut had been radiating, it didn’t seem like the rant of a hopeless man. A hopeless man wouldn’t have fought anything; not the death by bus or the help from a stranger. Undercut was fighting, so that had to mean something… didn’t it? He felt a weight descend on his shoulders as he looked at Mikasa, so strong and yet so frail at the same time. She didn’t get this way around just anyone. He let out a soft sigh through his nose. “You managed it,” he murmured.

Her eyes flickered with a ghost Marco couldn’t pinpoint, and then they were back. “Yes, well, that took me a long time and a lot of therapy, if you remember,” she said, finally spearing her pasta with a fork. Her free hand was picking at the sleeve of her jumper.

Marco nodded. “I know.”

“Besides, maybe this is a good thing. He’s clearly knocked some sort of thought into you. I’m not telling you to stop helping people, your good Samaritan impression is really coming up trumps with the population, but just… be aware of it, yeah?”

“Mm.”

Mikasa gave him enough time to bring three more mouthfuls of food to his mouth before she said, “He wasn’t what made you late though, was he? You said that was this morning.”

“Well, yeah, but he was… sort of… walking the same way as I was this evening…”

Mikasa pursed her lips. “If you were stalking your walking life crisis I am going to be disappointed in you.”

“I wasn’t stalking him!” Marco replied hotly.

“You better not. Seriously, I know you- don’t be dumb enough to just walk right up and ask what his problem is, that’ll get you a kick in the nuts in this city. You should know that by now.” She brandished a breadstick at him in a threatening gesture. “What was the first thing I told you about this city?”

Marco grinned. “That you were the best fuck this side of the river?”

That brought some colour into her cheeks. “I was drunk when I told you that and that was not the answer I was looking for.”

“Aw, but you know it’s true.”

“Shut up and answer the question.”  

Marco rolled his eyes. “You told me that you can’t trust a single person in this city.”

“Correct!” She poked him in the chest with the breadstick to reiterate the point, before biting the end off of it. “Ca’ tru’ a single pers’n,” she replied with her mouth full.

Marco’s nose wrinkled. “What happened to being ladylike?”

“Psh, you’re more of a lady than I am.”

“Eh, probably right.” Marco couldn’t help but grin at her. She had told him once that she hadn’t been born in Trost; she had moved too young to remember where it was she did come from exactly. The endless moving around would do that to a child- it was enough to make anyone dizzy. But nevertheless, Trost was where she’d found herself and so Trost adopted her into its folds without asking first. Here she was, a hardened Trost-goer, trying to educate the innocent non-local who had only moved there for university and somehow managed to get stuck there. She still acted as though it was his first week in the city, even though he had been a citizen six years that September. _Wow_ , he thought to himself, _six years sure went by fast._

He was brought out of his thoughts by Mikasa clearing her throat. “So, assholes aside, how’s Sasha? Did her scan go okay today?”

“Oh!” _Yes, Sasha, the person with a life inside her belly who your life revolves around lately_. “Yeah, it went okay. It just feels so real when you see it there in black and white on a screen.”

Mikasa frowned. “No sign of the father?”

Marco’s smile fell. “N-no. She hasn’t heard a thing from him.”

“Bastard,” Mikasa snorted, crunching her salad a little more ferociously between her teeth. “What sort of guy gets his girlfriend pregnant then disappears like the scarlet pimpernel?”

“A bastard?” Marco guessed.

“Fair point.”

“Speaking of bastards,” Marco said, “how’s our favourite little bastard these days?”

Mikasa’s gaze lost some of its edge. “Eren? He’s- great. He’s doing really great.” She smiled. “He’s been clean for a month and a half now. And he has a job, only a little one in a bar, but the owner owed me and anything’s better than standing on street corners, right?”

Marco beamed. The look of pride on Mikasa’s face when she talked about Eren was definitely warranted; Mikasa and Eren had met in a halfway house when they were teenagers, and had stuck together ever since. Having no parents between them, they adopted each other as siblings of their own accord. Everyone avoided Eren, Mikasa told Marco, because of his oddly-coloured eyes. Eren had one eye teal, and the other a bizarre molten gold that seemed to either repel or attract the people surrounding him. Despite that, Mikasa said that it was Eren’s fiery nature, not his heterochromia, that had drawn her to him. Marco had known him almost as long as he’d known Mikasa, and it was both of those things about him that had convinced the doe-eyed eighteen year old Marco that he was not as straight as he thought he was- as in, he was _barely_ straight. “That’s such good news, Mikasa. Really. I’m proud of him.”

He spotted the way she flushed with pleasure, the way a mother would when hearing praise about her son. It was sweet. Mikasa cared a lot more than she liked to let on. “Does he have a phone yet? I’d love to see him. For a catch-up,” he added when she shot him a questioning look. His attraction to Eren was barely a secret, after all- especially not to Mikasa. Not that it would lead to anything- Marco wouldn’t let it. He couldn’t.

“He does have one. I’ll make sure he knows,” Mikasa said.

“Good. Because I want to congratulate him in person, and I haven’t seen him in wee-”

_Beep. Beep. Beeeeep._

The noise, however small, severed his train of thought. “O-oh shoot,” Marco mumbled, plucking the alarm from his pocket and setting it down as he frantically searched the rest of his pockets. He’d forgotten about it; he’d hoped that he would be able to get home before it went off. But, unfortunately, no such luck. Panic began to set in when he couldn’t find what he was looking for right away, and his steady hands soon became shaky and slippery with the oncome of sweat. _Had he left them at work? No, no, he couldn’t have, he was so careful…_

“Marco?”

“I’m fine!” he replied breezily, still patting himself down as he spoke. It was a good thing he could pretend the way he did, because he couldn’t even imagine what the feeling of ice running through his vein as his entire body went into panic mode would look like on the surface. “Just… need to f-find…”

_I need them I need them I need them oh no where are they oh God please if you exist tell me I have them…_

“Breast pocket,” Mikasa instructed, reaching across the table in a heartbeat and grabbing a small cylinder from his leather jacket.

Marco relaxed. “Thanks. I always worry about losing the-”

“There’s more in here.” She was peering into the little bottle intently, brow furrowing as she counted the rainbow of pills that rattled about their prison.

Marco swallowed painfully. He snatched the bottle from her grasp, a move he wouldn’t usually have dared to pull, and unscrewed the cap. “C-could you ask for some water? I need to take them now.”

Mikasa was still frowning. “Marco, you have a cocktail there. Don’t you see that?”

“I get migraines. Please ask for some water, I can’t dry swallow so many.”

“Has your dose been upped?”

Marco’s eyes flashed a warning. _“Mikasa!”_

“Tell me!” she demanded. “I won’t get you water until you do!”

 _Okay, that’s it._ Marco needed to take the pills, and he needed to take them right that minute. Mikasa didn’t want to get him some water? He’d improvise. He grabbed the vase, yanked the sunny yellow flowers from their sanctuary, tipped the entire contents of the bottle into his mouth and took a long, disgusting swig of water, all in a matter of seconds- and seconds he sorely wished he hadn’t taken. The water tasted faintly of plants and soil, but it did the job, and as he set the vase back down with a dignified _clunk_ , he realised the entire restaurant was staring at him. He smacked his lips at the strange aftertaste- it could have been the pills or the trace of plant matter, he couldn’t be sure- and gave a polite smile to his audience. “I’m sorry. Please, carry on.”

The restaurant, reluctantly, went back to life. Plates clacked, chatter resumed and gazes diverted from him- all except Mikasa. She was still staring at him like he’d grown a second head. Marco, out of some ridiculous urge, wiped his mouth with his napkin as delicately as he could. He’d noticed too late that the majority of the water was seeping into his shirt with little chance of help. He just made the most of a bad situation- and smiled smugly at Mikasa. “Ner ner.”

She blinked. “Did you just-?”

“Yes, Mikasa. I drank plant water.”

“Just to avoid a question?”

“Yes.”

“Damn, you’re committed.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And insane.”

“Maybe.”

“Wasn’t it gross?”

“Yes, it was disgusting.”

Mikasa snorted. And then she threw her head back and howled with laughter. Marco sniggered along with her, paying much more attention to her breathless, helpless laughter than his own; she didn’t laugh like that very often, and every occasion was one to be treasured. When she finally recovered, her jaw snapped robotically shut. “Why are you taking more pills?”

Marco barely restrained a huff. Barely. He was glad he did. “Mikasa, it’s fine. If it was anything to worry about-”

“-You’d tell me?”

“I’d tell you,” he agreed.

“Good. Well, now that’s settled, you big freak, I have to tell you about this thing that happened at work-”

And then the conversation moved on. Marco was grateful for it; even though he could feel the pills churning around in his stomach, he much preferred not talking about them, and he had a feeling Mikasa knew it. There were never any awkward silences between the two of them; having been inside a person tended to break the bonds of privacy, it was true, but he and Mikasa transcended all boundaries. Soon they were talking about the newest guy at her job, the one who wouldn’t leave her alone even though she’d turned him down repeatedly, and how Mikasa was pretty sure she could hold a better conversation with her vibrator. Marco finished his meal laughing, and trying not to snort wine out of his nose after another dry comment of Mikasa’s.  

They stayed a while longer, chatting idly about this, that and the other, and whilst Marco became clued in with what was going on in Mikasa’s life, she made no effort to twist the conversation back onto him. He was thankful. He didn’t want to ramble on about his less than interesting life. When he did mention a girl he walked home one night because the streets were dark and she’d got lost, Mikasa gave him a teasing smile. “You’re such a gentleman,” she said. “Next thing you know you’ll be getting cats out of trees and chasing runaway prams down the road.”

“Oh, shut up,” Marco laughed as they squared the bill. “I like helping people. We’re not gonna talk about this again, are we?”

“No,” Mikasa agreed, “though I am seriously considering getting you a journal or something that you can jot all these interesting exploits down. You could even rant about elusive Angry Mister Undercut that you seem to be obsessing over.”

“I’m not _obsessing_ over him,” Marco retorted, “I’m just… is it bad that I’m intrigued?”

“Probably, because he sounds like a dick.”

“Yeah,” Marco sighed as they stood up, “you’re probably right.” He tipped the servers a little extra for the incident with the water jug and offered Mikasa his arm. “My lady,” he grinned.

Mikasa took his arm and arched a brow. “You know, anyone else and it would sound creepy coming from them, but you… you just _own_ it.”

Marco laughed. “Why thank you, I do try… _my lady._ ”

“Don’t push it.”

The staff called out farewells as they left, and Marco had to admit that it was a little startling that they were so eagerly awaited every time they went there. The cold air was a fresh relief as they stepped outside, and he noticed Mikasa draw in on herself in an attempt to keep warm. He was halfway out of his free sleeve when she muttered, “Marco Adam Bodt, don’t you dare give me your jacket or I’ll have to expect a proposal right here, right now.”

“But you’re cold.” Marco snorted, but his arm retreated back into its sleeve. “Do you want me to get down on one knee, or?”

“Probably. That’s what everyone has to do, ri- Marco, what are you doing?” There was an edge to her voice when Marco, sniggering to himself, pulled free of her grip and began to sink downwards. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare,” she said, her voice high and strained.

“You asked. I deliver.” Marco grinned up at her, still sniggering as he went onto one knee. “How about it, ‘Kasa?”

“If you _have_ to fake-propose, at least make it in a less conspicuous place,” Mikasa hissed, staring around at the people milling through the street. Many had stopped to look.

Marco raised his brows. “You’re cold. Let me give you my jacket.”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh, Mikasa of the Ackermans, you are the first and only woman I ever made love to and I want it to remain that way…”

“Marco, stop it right now or I swear to fuck I’ll knock you out.”

“And the way you loved me, why, it made me feel like a man…”

“Marco, I’m warning you.”

“And I want to be that man for the rest of my life…”

“Okay I will put your fucking jacket on, just get up off the floor and stop pretending to propose.”

Marco was smug when he got back to his full height, shedding his coat and offering it to Mikasa. “I pray that you take this jacket as a token of my love,” he cooed.

She snatched it off him and gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. “You’re a dick,” she hissed.

Marco grinned. “I learnt from the best.”

“Oh, you can shut right up mister.”

Marco was too busy being punched to notice the clumsily clapping of shoes on cobbles, but when he looked up his eyes narrowed. It looked like one of the guys from before, one of Undercut’s friends. He hadn’t paid much attention to them, it was true, but for some reason the guy’s dishevelled appearance jogged his memory and got something akin to suspicion squirming in his stomach. He looked a little wild-eyed and panicked as he ran, and that wasn’t a good look to have. “D-does anyone have a phone I could borrow?” he called out. Marco’s chest tightened.

Mikasa glanced at him. “Marco, don’t.”

He wanted to listen to her. He wanted to shrug it off and go home to his roommate and his bed and his cat, and have a good night’s sleep. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist that innate urge he got with every panicked voice; it was like someone had hooked him at his navel and yanked him towards their problem without even realising. He took a breath. He gave Mikasa an apologetic look. Then, he called out. “I’ve got one.”

Undercut’s friend stopped dead, eyes bulging. He seemed confused that anyone actually wanted to help, and only when Marco took a step forward did he stumble over to him, shoulders still heaving as though he’d been running. “P-please…can you call the police, I don’t know how long Sam’s gonna be able to hold him off.”

Marco frowned. “What? The police? Why, what’s going on?”

The other man ran a hand through his mop of pale hair, gasping for breath. “My friend… he drank too much, and he’s being an idiot… but… I think he might…might do something stupid…”

Marco straightened up. “Where is he?”

“On the old bridge by the river.”

Marco ignored Mikasa’s shouts that he needed to leave it alone. He took off running, with the other man beside him, the chill of brimming autumn air sliding easily through the thin fabric of his shirt. He didn’t know who it was. He didn’t know if it was Undercut. It could have been the other friend they were with, after all. But no- something was telling him that it was that stranger who had grabbed his attention so wholeheartedly that was stood on a bridge on the brink of falling in… or was it _jumping?_

Suddenly, the coldness he felt was nothing to do with the chilly night.

His heart was roaring, his muscles straining, but he still had enough breath to ask, “What’s your name?” as they ran.

“Mylius,” his companion panted, “A-are you the police?”

Marco debated on lying. He really did. Police got a degree of respect even if they were all useless, but he knew he would regret it later. “Not exactly,” he replied, keeping pace with Mylius as best he could. “Do you think he’ll jump?” he asked a breath later.

Mylius went pale at the thought. “I d-don’t know, I didn’t mean for him to go crazy, we only asked him to come out because he hasn’t left his flat in weeks… we thought it’d be good for him...” His voice trailed off. Clearly, he realised how wrong he was.

They ran through the small street of restaurants and bars, trying to dodge the groups of people that stood as obstacles in their way, and Marco felt his breath come a little harder in his chest. _They said to take it easy,_ his mind reminded him. _Said you had to take it one baby step at a time._ Sprinting through a packed Trost street probably wasn’t what they would have advised, but Marco didn’t care. Someone was in trouble.

He had to help.

Had to save.

Had to.

Thankfully, he stopped just before his lungs gave out. Mylius skidded to a halt and thrust a hand out, pointing to the small bridge. “T-there,” he gasped out.

Marco often walked down this part of the city. Not only did he always meet Mikasa at The Maria, but he also frequented a few of the bars. The little iron bridge connected two of the smaller areas of Trost together, its river winding thick and fat like a snake between them. It rose in a lazy arc above them, high enough for a canal boat to pass under, but little else. It was beautiful, in the right sort of tired light. He might have been a pathetic romantic, but there were many times Marco had rushed to the small iron bridge in a drunken daze and thrown his head up to the sky, staring at the way the stars seemed to pulse and rush all around him and make him dizzy.

He couldn’t remember ever having stood on the top rung of the bridge and mutely declared that he was going to jump, though.

Of course, it was Undercut doing the declaring.

Marco gulped.

He was swaying, and badly too- Marco guessed he must have sunk quite a few pints to be wobbling the way he was- but his legs were still pressing into the last few precious inches of the bridge. His other friend was trying desperately to stop him from climbing up further, but Undercut was either trying to kick him away or merely swayed out of reach. His friend was pleading, begging, cursing him, but nothing was going in. Undercut might as well have been deaf, for all the good it did. He leaned over the side of the bridge then, the gathered crowd letting out a single cry of alarm, and stared into its depths with those piercing eyes of his. He looked like a child watching the ripples, a child so totally engrossed that they didn’t know how close they were getting. But then things changed.

Undercut heaved out a sigh, a heavy one, and got the tired look back. His jaw clenched, and started to tremble like he was trying to bite back a comment. Marco knew what pain looked like when he saw it. He took a step forward, Mylius warning him to be careful. He bit his lip as he stepped a little closer. He knew.

The stranger’s plaid shirt was gaping open now, exposing a thin sliver of stomach to the elements. It was pimpling with the cold, but he didn’t seem to care; he was too focused on the water, mumbling wordlessly to it. Marco wasn’t sure whether or not any sound was actually coming from his fumbling lips, but it felt like he was infringing on a private moment, private and sacred, and for a moment he wanted to walk away. But then the stubborn nudging returned, and he cleared his throat as quietly as he could. Undercut didn’t even twitch. Marco took a step closer. Undercut leaned a little more. He stopped.

“C’mon man, this isn’t funny anymore!” the other friend- Sam- said, reaching out to tug at the hem of Undercut’s shirt.

Undercut whipped around and hissed in a low, quaking voice, “What you gon’ do? I fucked up, Sammy. Fucked up.”

The drink had loosened his syllables, made them blend into one singular slur, but Marco got the jist of it. He inched closer, keeping his eyes on the guy the whole time and never once looking down at the water. It wasn’t much of a drop, he reasoned; it was the depth of water he was worried about. Just as he thought it, Undercut swung a leg over the side and straddled the thin divide between the bridge and the river. Marco cursed under his breath. _Shit. He had to get closer._ He took two strides forward, and that was when the eyes flashed up to greet him.

Marco wasn’t too proud to admit that he was bowled over by the sheer ferocity of the gaze he got from the stranger. His eyes were _burning_ \- that was the only reasonable word to describe them- and for a remarkably drunk man, they seemed remarkably sharp. Marco found himself rooted to the spot. He couldn’t even try to wheedle out a ‘hello’; every single word he possessed was suddenly under lock and key, and all he could do was stare, wide- eyed and pleading. The fierce eyes narrowed. “Would ya look who ‘tis,” he slurred, “it’s fuckin’ Superman.”

Marco blinked. _Superman. That was a new one._ He cleared his throat, and hoped the right words would spill out. “Hey,” was all he managed to get out. _Why was this so difficult?_

Undercut scoffed- or at least, it sounded like it was meant to be a scoff. “Fuckin’ Superman here to save the day,” he mumbled.

Marco bit his lip. He sidled closer. “H-hey, come on. Aren’t you hungry? I always get hungry after I’ve been drinking. I want to eat everything in sight. Why don’t you come down and we go get you some food, hm? I know a great trashy fast food place just around the corner.” He tried a smile.

Undercut’s expression narrowed again. “M’not hungry,” he muttered, casting his eyes back on the water. “’M sad.”

“A-and why are you sad?” Marco asked.

Undercut sighed. “Fu-tch,” was the only word he uttered. Marco was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d been trying to say.

Marco was now close enough to reach him. “F-Futch?” he asked. “What is that, exactly?” Silence. “Well, whatever it is, it can’t be important enough to make you jump into the river, can it? It’s freezing this time of year. You don’t want to get a cold, not in this weather- you’d never shake it.”

Undercut’s eyebrow quirked. “Wanna fuckin’ bet?”

“Not really, no. Not if it involves you jumping into that river.” Marco shoved his hands in his pockets and brought his shoulders up in a bid to ward off the cold. He suddenly regretted giving Mikasa his jacket. He wasn’t sure where she was now; she’d be around the area somewhere, she wouldn’t leave him on his own. “Come on. Come down. Talk about it with your friends. Go home. Sleep. Anything.”

Undercut considered this for a moment. Then: “Why don’ you mind yer own fuckin’ business?”

Marco tried not to show the way his innards grew smaller by the stranger’s words. He swallowed painfully. “Because I’m making this my business,” he said evenly.

Undercut squinted. “You’re a persevering li’l shit aren’ you?”

Marco smiled. “I try to be. You can even punch me if you like. But you’ll have to come down if you want to.”

Undercut paused. Then, he rolled his eyes like he was being asked to tidy his room by a nagging parent. “Fine, fine, if you want me to, I’ll come punch you, you li’l-”

His words vanished as he lost his balance. There was a collective cry as Undercut overbalanced trying to swing back over onto the right side, and vanished from sight. There was a splash moments later. Someone in the crowd screamed as Marco leapt pointlessly forward and hung off the edge, staring down at the disturbed water rippling with foam.

He always thought it was strange when people said their blood could run cold. He hadn’t ever felt that sensation, of his own life-force freezing in his veins and making it impossible to think straight. But at that moment, as he peered into the water, he felt a glimpse of what it was like.

“Marco!” 

He turned his head to see Mikasa running towards him, his jacket flying out behind her like a beaten up shadow. She stopped short and looked wide-eyed at him. “Don’t.”

Marco opened his mouth. He shut it. He looked back at the water.

“Don’t,” she said again, softer.

He glanced back at her. He emptied his pockets of his phone and whatever else, dropping them into her waiting hands. She was still shaking her head, her eyes were still beginning to narrow into dangerous territory, but Marco didn’t care.

Before anyone could stop him, he had climbed the top rung and taken a deep breath.

The stranger had fallen off the bridge.

Marco jumped.


	2. When I hit that bottom crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sooo can I just say how overwhelmed I am with the love people are giving this? I mean seriously, thank you so much! I am blown away by the hits and kudos ALREADY and we're not even into the juicy bits so thank you so so much for that, and your wonderful comments <3 Also a BIG BIG thank you to Hachi for their amazing artwork bc seriously I couldn't stop squealing and shedding tears of joy when they showed me. If any of you haven't seen the fantabulous artyness yet, go squeal about it to them: http://hachidraws.tumblr.com/post/97231866157/marco-bodt-has-a-problem-he-has-the-biggest-hero
> 
> Anywhooo here is the next chapter! Whew I need to make shorter chapters I swear to god this is not gonna end well. But, here we are. Marco has a weird encounter, his stranger is a lot /stranger/ than he even realised, and Eren Jaeger waltzes into the picture like the cocky li'l shit he is. And there's lots of coffee. Lots. This should be called 'the chapter with the coffee'. Ah well.
> 
> Again, comments/feedback is so so SO appreciated, and if ya wanna find me my tumblr is here: http://attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com/
> 
> Enjoy! Not so much angst in this ;D it's cool

Marco only realised how insanely stupid jumping off a bridge was the next morning. He had his alarm set even though he had the day off, and rolled out of bed with the grunt of a roused bear at what he deemed a reasonable hour of the morning- and what Sasha called a travesty to nature. He was surprised he didn’t wake up snivelling and sneezing: it would only be what he deserved.

He’d been right- the river was cold. It was _freezing._

And yet here he was, without so much as a sniffle.

_Maybe I do have some luck,_ he thought to himself with a grim smile.

He stretched with a feline yowl and padded in the direction of the kitchen blearily, wiping the last remainder of sleep from his eyes. He cast a glance to their windows, and saw the entirety of Trost stretched out like the pelt of a great animal. He yawned. His and Sasha’s apartment was a modest place on the topmost floor of an old warehouse, and it had been converted pretty poorly. What the apartment had in space, it made up for with damp and funny smells every now and again. And peeling paint. Lots of peeling paint. Still, broke was broke, and Marco had little choice in the matter; it was either this place or moving back home. The windows were a little stiff too, the hinges having gone bad long ago, but they were just going into winter. Marco said they could hold out a little longer until they actually _had_ to open their windows. He wasn’t sure Sasha cared.

He crossed the room and made a beeline for the kettle, hitting it onto the boil position as he slumped against the counter, trying to blink a feeling of wakefulness back into his brain. He remembered how cold the water had been when he hit it, and how thankful he’d been that those rigorous swimming programs in his school had paid off. The river wasn’t exactly a white water rapid, but trying to churn through the water in clothes was always going to be a feat. And the guy- Undercut- had just been drifting there, not even trying to fight back. Maybe he was too shocked, or maybe he was welcoming it. Trying to catch hold of him and pull him free had been like trying to catch smoke- Marco could remember the ache in his lungs as he almost lost breath.

Marco jumped as the kettle began to whistle, and scrambled for a mug. What did it matter? Why was he still thinking about him? He didn’t do that. He wasn’t meant to think about the people he helped afterwards; it was like an unspoken rule he’d given himself. However much he tried to keep telling himself that, though, Undercut seemed to slip through the net and nestle in the forefront of his mind. Maybe it was because this guy seemed to be the type who got into trouble constantly; even when they got onto dry land and Marco demanded he take the guy home, Undercut was adamant that he was fine, that he didn’t need anyone, that he didn’t have to have ‘some hero’ jump in a river for him.

Marco dumped a mound of coffee and sugar in his mug and sighed to himself. He had been drunk, that much was obvious, but that didn’t mean the fierce denials from the guy couldn’t hurt. Marco didn’t want to take it personally, but it was hard not to.

At least his friends didn’t seem bad, just highly apologetic. They tried to make excuses for him, said that he was tired or stressed at work (what did he do? _No, Marco, stop it_ ) but none of that really mattered. Once they turned the corner onto the street the stranger’s lived at, that was it. The friends took over. Marco had done something then that he regretted immediately afterwards: he had scrawled his number on a scrap of paper and tucked it into Undercut’s pocket, asking if he could call him the next morning so he was sure he was alright. He’d gotten a very wobbly V sign in reply. “Note to self,” he muttered, pouring the boiling water into the cup, “never try to bother helping drunks again.”

At the sound of his voice, a meow sounded out from the living space. Marco arched a brow and leaned around the kitchen island to see a flash of white, and then he was face to face with a mewling, snow white cat with lamp-yellow eyes. He smiled. “Heyy there Batman,” he cooed, stepping back to give him a tickle behind his ears. “How you doing?” The cat meowed in reply and butted his head into Marco’s hand, a purr already threatening to spill from his throat. Marco had gotten the cat from a nearby shelter; he’d been there the longest, and his name had sold it for him. Batman had come home with him the same day, and got Sasha on side with a single, questioning mew.

Marco left him for a while to continue making breakfast, and Batman followed him, leaping up onto the counter and sitting next to the kettle with a peaceful expression. Marco rolled his eyes and opened the door to the fridge. “Just this once, I’ll get you some milk,” he said, “and be thankful you got me in a good mood, big man.” The truth was, he always tended to be in a good mood, and Batman knew it. He flicked on his iPod speakers as he passed them, not liking the strange silence of the apartment, and immediately felt a little more comfortable with the strum of guitars filling it instead. He frowned when he didn’t recognise the song immediately, and glanced at the iPod sitting in the dock. _Sasha’s. Of course it had to be Sasha’s._ But then the first line came in.

“ _On a Monday, I am waiting, Tuesday I am fading…_ ”

“…and by Wednesday, I can’t sleep,” he found himself singing a beat later. He should have been ashamed that he was stood in his kitchen, in nothing but his boxers and an old shirt in case the postman decided to call, bopping his head and singing along to an Ashlee Simpson song. The operative word was _should_. Marco didn’t. And when the chorus hit, his over the top “OHHHH” made Batman yowl in surprise and make a bid for freedom towards the island, his claws skittering on the polished surface. Marco just grinned and carried on, sliding on the laminate towards his next port of call, the grill. He was still singing, less obnoxiously now as he laid a few strips of bacon down, when Sasha came in the door with a bag of groceries. She stopped dead at the sight she was met with; Batman looking pleadingly over at her as if she could stop whatever fever had possessed his owner, and Marco using a spoon as a makeshift microphone as he sang the next line: _“Faaaall... Sometimes I fall so fast, When I hit that bottom crash, you're all I haaaave…”_

“What the hell have I just walked into?” she said, laughing at the way Marco spun around red-faced and grinning. Batman made a grumbling noise and curled his tail closer to his body, looking at his owner with contempt. “Are you wearing your Hulk underwear again? Aw sweetie, you have a high opinion of yourself. At least it’s not the Flash, that would be an awkward advertisement.”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything about my non-existent sex life and we’ll keep it that way!” Marco laughed, trotting over to her and peering in the bag she carried. “Got anything edible?”

“Heyy, leave off, Bump wants all of this!” Sasha said, placing the bag on the island and blocking it with her body.

“You didn’t use the baby as an excuse before,” Marco pointed out. “You still ate like you were eating for two.”

“Oi!” He ducked the punch swung his way and tittered as she pushed past him to see to the bacon. Sasha started singing the last few lines of the song under her breath as she wiggled her hips to the beat. Marco snorted. Whenever Sasha _tried_ to be grown up, she failed miserably. She suddenly seemed to realise what she was cooking, for she paused in her hip-wiggling and song-destroying. “Was this the last of the bacon? You _know_ I love bacon!” she pouted.

Marco smiled. “Well, it’s lucky I made enough for both of us.”

Sasha flashed him the cheesiest smile imaginable over her shoulder as she turned the food carefully. “Marco Bodt, I could kiss you.”

His nose wrinkled. “Ugh, pregnant lady germs.”

“Ugh, boy cooties,” she replied a beat later, before turning back to face him. Her brow rose. “Your hair’s getting really long now,” she observed.

Marco shuffled his weight as he brought a hand up to toy with the thick chunks of hair he found there. “Yeah, I know. It’s really starting to get in the way now.”

Sasha made a thoughtful noise and turned back to the bacon, turning the grill off and upending the rashers onto a plate. “Lucky thing I bought bread, wasn’t it? Sandwich?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Marco said, moving to stand behind her. “I can make them.”

“You just say that because you’re fussy about how you make them.”

“It’s not my fault you cut them wrong.”

Sasha let out a snort and wriggled away, throwing the bread to him without even looking as she sank onto their moth-eaten sofa. Marco only just managed to catch it. He watched as Batman stretched and dropped down from his perch to follow Sasha and rolled his eyes, muttering “fickle,” to himself as he turned back. This was his life, he reminded himself. He was Sasha’s roommate, the owner of a fair-weather cat and the ex of his best friend. This was his life, and nobody else needed to belong in it. He had friends.

He wasn’t lonely.

He wasn’t.

He didn’t let himself be lonely.

_That was when the dreams started._

He nearly cut himself on the bread knife. He held in his curse as he finished making the sandwiches for them both, and took a swig of his coffee before wandering over to the sofa and handing a plate to Sasha. She rested it on her belly and huffed when it didn’t stay up. Marco wanted to mention that it wouldn’t be long before it would, but didn’t want to risk a sudden breakdown. Sasha’s mood swings ran on a massively erratic scale, after all. He slumped down beside her, and tried to ignore the way Batman was eyeing his bacon. “I’m surprised you were out,” he said. “You usually sleep in on your days off.”

“Bump woke me up,” she replied, resting her feet on the tiny coffee table they had. Marco had salvaged it from an old junk shop, and it did the job as good as anything. “Six in the morning. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me lose half my body weight in throwing up.”

Marco made a face. “Nice. You should have woken me, I could’ve held your hair or something.”

“You’d sleep through a nuclear bomb, Marco, I don’t think a shout from me would wake you.”

“Just a thought.”

It didn’t take long for Sasha to eat the bacon sandwich. In fact, ‘eat’ was the wrong word to use- she _inhaled_ it in a matter of seconds, letting out a groan of satisfaction afterwards and sinking further into the sofa. Marco let a chuckle spill free, and took a sip of coffee. She’d been up that early? He was lucky she’d missed _him_ puking up a storm. Stupid pills. Stupid side effects. ‘ _You won’t get many’,_ they said. _‘Barely any side effects this time around,’_ they said. He should have known by now that they were bad liars. “So, will you let me put your hair up?” she asked.

He whined. “Sash’, no,” he began to protest. It was too late. Sasha had already pounced. Batman leapt down just in time to avoid being squashed as Sasha flung her arms around Marco’s neck amid his cries of “CAREFUL I HAVE COFFEE”, but it seemed a feeble excuse as she was already threading her hands through his hair. Marco hated the way he felt himself relax against it, like she was hypnotising him. It was no secret how sensitive he was when it came to his hair being handled, and how _sometimes_ he liked having his hair pulled and played with a bit too much. He wasn’t sure if Sasha knew; Mikasa was usually the one who took full advantage of it. He took a small, shaky gulp of his coffee whilst she sunk her hands into his too-thick hair, and he bit his lip at the shivers that ran up his spine at the feeling. “Saaaash,” he complained.

“Shut up and keep still,” she muttered. She wasn’t pulling back much of his hair, letting the front strands dangle in front of his face as she worked. Marco was pretty sure that if he could see her, she would have her tongue poking out- she always did that when she concentrated. “So, are you going to answer your phone today? I tried to call you earlier.”

“U-uh…” was all Marco got out. Sasha’s fingers were scratching his scalp and making him tingle.

“Is it in your bedroom?”

“Y-yeah, I think so…”

He felt slight tugs on his hair (that he had to very calmly try to ignore) and then Sasha moved away. She looked pleased with herself. “You always do it so weird,” she commented, poking the tiny little ponytail she’d managed to make with his hair. “You scrape all the hair back. It looks nicer like this.” She winked. “Why, you’re almost cute.”

“Steady now.”

She laughed and hopped off the sofa, no doubt to retrieve Marco’s phone for him, and he finished off the rest of his sandwich. Sasha was a good roommate, all things considered; she was relatively clean, she ate a lot so they shared the food bill, she played with his hair when he secretly wanted her to… they had a good arrangement going. Plus he made all of her maternity appointments with her. All in all, Sasha had been a good choice, regardless of the fact that they bumped into each other on the street somewhat literally a few years ago. He gave her a smile when she came back with his phone, and it only faltered when he spotted her frown. “What is it?”

“Some unknown number’s been calling you,” she said. “Looks like they’ve been ringing a few times, too.”

“Sasha!” Marco hissed, snatching his phone from her hand. “Don’t look at my phone!”

“What will it have on there, secret messages? To do list: buy more superhero themed underwear and coast around Trost in a helicopter?”

Marco sniffed. “I don’t like heights.”

“Says the one who chose to live in the top floor apartment.”

“I didn’t say I was _logical_.” He scrolled through his call history and frowned. She was right; the same unknown number cropped up a few times, and it looked like they had called earlier that morning. The only person who sprang to mind was- “Undercut,” he muttered. Confusion disintegrated in an instant, replaced with a thin layer of panic.

“Nah, you wouldn’t suit an undercut, you’d look even more like a devilish rogue than you do now,” Sasha commented, poking his tiny ponytail again as she sat down.

“N-no, it’s Undercut. _The_ Undercut.” When Sasha continued to look blank, he sighed. “The bus guy.”

“Ohh, the asshole,” Sasha whistled. Then she frowned. “Wait, how does he have your number?”

Marco tried to feign innocence. He failed. Instead, he tried not to cringe as much as he wanted to. He’d managed to sneak in, sopping wet, to their apartment the night before by a misplaced miracle without waking her. He’d dried off and got into bed before he heard her so much as snore a little too loudly. That meant, however, that she had no idea what had happened that night. He put on the nicest smile he could manage and said, “I, uh, bumped into him again. Last night, when I was out with Mikasa.”

“Oh.” Sasha paused. Marco could feel her eyes on him as he stared down at the alien number, wondering whether to ring it or not. The awkward minutes ticked by. “Is this a date thing?” Sasha finally came out with.

Marco’s eyes darted up to her and his mouth dropped open in a tiny ‘o’ of horror. “Wha- SASHA, _NO_.”

“What?! It could be!”

Marco ignored how he was blushing profusely and gave her as mortified a look as he could muster. “No, Sash. Just… just _no_ , okay?”

“I’m just saying, you haven’t dated for a while, Marco,” she frowned, hanging off his shoulder as she stared at him. “I think the last person you were with was-”

“Let’s not talk about it.” Marco was starting to feel himself growing cold. It was like jumping into the river all over again.

Sasha ignored him. “And before that it was Mikasa… and we know how _that_ turned out.” The look sent his way was concerned, worried, and that irritated him even more. “Marco, have you ever considered the fact that you’re allowed to date again?”

Now he definitely felt like he’d jumped into the river again. In fact, it felt like he was leaping back in repeatedly, again and again with the same icy blast to his chest as his pulse roared. He gritted his teeth and looked away. “Sasha, we’re not discussing this.” He didn’t even snap the way he used to. He didn’t have the energy. It was an age old discussion, and one he never liked having. He hated the pity he got from everyone, the way they sighed at him and patted his shoulder and told him they were sorry, that they knew how he felt when they didn’t. Some people couldn’t help it. It’s what they did, how they coped with their friend’s problems. Sasha, unfortunately, was one of those people. “Please, just… drop it.”

She let out a sigh ( _oh no, the sigh_ ) and did, thankfully, let it drop. Her downcast expression made Marco feel guilty. He cleared his throat. “B-besides, I hope that you don’t think of grumpy assholes as my type,” he tried with a weak chuckle.

Sasha didn’t take the bait right away. But then she caught his eye, and copied his smile. “I dunno,” she said eventually, “Maybe. You seem the type who likes the idea of taming the wild beast, breaking the stallion…”

“Breaking the stallion?!” Marco burst out laughing. “Oh God Sasha, shut up! I couldn’t be less interested in the guy if I tried.”

“Try a little harder,” she said with a smug expression, “because you are going to ring him back.”

He wanted to deny it, he really did, but his thumb was already straying to the little green phone icon. Sasha let a satisfied hum from her pursed lips and stood up, making kissing noises at Batman to follow her. Batman, as usual, ignored her and stole her seat, curling up in a ball and watching Marco unblinkingly. He looked back to his phone and sighed. Sasha was right- of _course_ he was going to call him back. But why had he called in the first place? He wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered to give him his number; it was more to make sure the guy didn’t choke on his own vomit or something in the night, and he definitely hadn’t expected it to be _used_. Still, he thought to himself as he steeled himself to hit the right button, it couldn’t be that bad… could it? He gulped, and hit the ‘call’ button before he changed his mind.

It began to ring slowly, steadily, like it was counting down the time until Marco was a goner. He bit his lip as he waited, sinking deeper into his sofa. What was he going to say to him? If all he was going to get from Undercut was another mouthful of verbal abuse he wasn’t sure he wanted him to pick up the phone. But he couldn’t help admitting it- he was curious.

It rang eight times (Marco counted) before it was picked up. He swallowed painfully. “You rang back,” was Undercut’s greeting. He had the sandpaper voice of a very hungover man, something Marco wasn’t as familiar with now as he used to be.

Marco gulped. He couldn’t pinpoint whether the voice he was hearing was hostile or not. “Y-yeah, I did.”

“Wait, shit… I didn’t say hi did I? Fuck my life.” There was a rattling sigh. “Hey.”

Marco blinked. “Hey.”

“So.” Undercut cleared his throat. “You, uh, brought me home yesterday.”

“Yeah.” Marco was beginning to think that this guy wasn’t very good at telephone conversations.

“We didn’t fuck, did we?” was the next reply.

Marco’s eyes snapped open wide. “No!” he hissed, scandalised.

“Jesus fuck, don’t raise your voice, my head’s fucking splitting,” the guy snapped, and Marco could imagine the way he was rubbing his temples or shooting his receiver a look of venom. “I was just asking, cus I don’t do that.”

Marco blinked. “You don’t fuck?”

“Wha- oh for the love of- of _course_ I fuck, I don’t just fuck people I don’t know. Or guys.”

“Right.”

“So we didn’t?”

“God, no.”

“Good.” There was an exhalation of breath on Undercut’s end. “So, uh, now we got that out the way, come down to the coffee shop on King Street. I’m buying you coffee.”

That threw Marco off. “E-excuse me?” he spluttered.

“You drink coffee, right?”

“Well… yeah, I do, but…”

“Good. Coffee shop. King Street. S’called Pixis’s Moustache or something shit like that. I’ll meet you there in ten?”

“Er, sure… but why-”

Too late.

Undercut had already hung up.

Marco stared down at his phone in confusion. _What sort of conversation had that been?_ Still, at least it wasn’t an endless stream of abuse. He stood up and headed in the direction of his room. King Street was a fifteen minute walk, but he could make it if he was quick enough. Sasha popped her head around his door whilst he was in the midst of throwing the contents of his wardrobe over his shoulder. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Apparently, I’m going for coffee,” he replied, his voice muffled somewhat by the blue striped T-shirt he was trying to force over his head.

“Huh, fancy.” Sasha watched him struggle for a few minutes until his head finally popped free. She sniggered. “Wear your purple shirt, you look sexy in that one. And your black jeans, the _nice_ ones. They give you an astronomical ass.”

He couldn’t help the blush that sprung to his cheeks. “Sasha, this isn’t a date! In fact… I don’t even know what it is.” He frowned. “He’s a bit… he sounded odd on the phone.”

“Didn’t you say he was an odd kind of person?”

“True… but I guess I’ll wait and see.” He grabbed his faithful brown leather jacket off the floor and shrugged it on, immediately feeling more comfortable at the gentle creaking of old leather against his back. “Hold the fort ‘til I’m back, O swollen one.”

Sasha saluted. “Aye, aye, mon capitan.” Marco ruffled her hair as he passed her, earning a squawk of annoyance, and snatched up his keys from the side. He tried to ignore the strange churning in his stomach. “Play nice with the other kids and don’t do anything I wouldn’t!” Sasha cried after him. “Go get yourself some!”

“Not a date!” Marco reminded her over his shoulder, but he wasn’t sure if Sasha had heard him. When he clicked the door shut behind him, he was pretty sure he could hear the telltale tapping of her nails against a phone. _Great. Now everyone would think that he was going on a date with the guy from the bridge. Perfect._ It was also a guy, he reckoned, that would be quite happy to rip his head off at the slightest of comments. _Yep_ , he thought with a sigh, _this was going to go about as well as a car crash._

* * *

 

He forgot that he still had his hair up until he was crossing the road leading onto King Street. He couldn’t quite admit to himself just how fast he’d been walking to get there on time, but the moment he reached a hand up to run it through his hair he’d felt the offending band and sighed. _Oh well,_ he thought to himself, _that whole ‘first impressions’ thing had already gone terribly, so how much worse could it get?_  He wasn’t even sure what he was walking into; he was beginning to think that maybe he should have told more people where he was going in case the guy was planning on jumping him or something. He shook the ridiculous notion from his mind and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Pixis’s Moustache wasn’t a shop he was familiar with, but he soon picked it out from the row of rather ornate and tired looking shops either side of it. It was garishly bright, and he frowned at the thought of it being Undercut’s top choice for coffee. Still, he wasn’t one to judge. Despite the freshness of the day, he spotted the familiar form of the stranger huddled on a little table outside, nursing a steaming cup of something like it was his lifeline. He bit his lip and took a deep breath. _Okay. Here goes._ He tried his best to make his stride short, but he couldn’t help speeding up as he reached him, the curiosity overwhelming him.

“Hey,” he said.

Undercut jumped.

_Shit._

The guy recovered quickly enough, sizing Marco up with a casual flick of his eyes, and motioned for the seat opposite him without a word. He sat, feeling more and more like he’d been called to be scrutinised. “I got you a latte. Most people like them, I guessed.” The guy pushed a small cup towards Marco, the steam still rising from it. Marco noticed that he was wearing dark green fingerless gloves. “I think the guy put some kinda syrupy shit in it, though.”

Marco took it and inhaled deeply. Hazelnut. “It’s fine, thank you,” he said, giving it an experimental sip. Huh. No poison. Okay then. Undercut seemed satisfied with that, for he gave a loose shrug and looked back at his own cup. He looked even worse than he had before; the dark crescents under his eyes were even more pronounced now, and he was pale enough to be mistaken for a ghost. He had another plaid shirt on that morning, and a black beanie pulled back enough that his hair was making a valiant effort to escape it. Marco began to wonder why he had been so worried about this guy; he looked as though he could be floored with a single punch. It was like he was made of paper.

Undercut took a gulp of coffee wordlessly, his eyes everywhere except on Marco, and Marco noticed that the liquid within was dark as pitch. The guy didn’t speak again, so he cleared his throat. “How’s the headache?”

Undercut’s gaze flashed up to him, tawny and predatory, but all he did was sigh. “It’s brewing up nicely,” he muttered. “I drank way too much last night.”

“Well, you _were_ hanging off the side of a bridge,” Marco pointed out.

Undercut winced. “Don’t remind me, ugh.” He ran a hand back through his hair, making the strands stick up on end. “I’m such a dick when I’ve been drinking.”

Marco had to bite back the response he wanted to give. “Er, well you were a bit-”

“Is the coffee okay?” He gestured at the cup. “You haven’t drank much of it.”

“O-oh, yeah, it’s fine, I’m just a bit…” Marco hesitated. In the end, he chose to be honest. “I’m a bit confused. Why did you invite me down here?”

Undercut ducked his head down into his chest and grumbled something under his breath. When he glanced up and realised Marco hadn’t heard him, he repeated, “I was always taught to repay the kindness of others. That’s all. Don’t think I go around handing freebies to everyone.”

Marco blinked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Undercut nodded curtly, and took another sip. “You can… you can go, if you want. You don’t have to stay here.”

That threw Marco for a loop. He raised a brow at the guy, and chuckled. “Why would I want to leave?” he asked.

It was Undercut’s turn to look confused. “Why would you want to stay? Don’t you think I’m an asshole?”

“Ah, but see, you’re not.” When Undercut looked even more confused, Marco gestured to the drinks they had. “A true asshole wouldn’t have bought me coffee. You’re just a lesser spotted asshole,” he grinned, “not nearly as dangerous.”

Undercut snorted. “Whatever. You don’t know me well enough.”

Marco resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Guys who tried to be assholes were so much worse than actual ones; often, they tried _too_ hard. Instead, he wrapped his hands around the mug in an attempt to warm his hands. He couldn’t figure this guy out. One minute he was trying (however badly) to be a gentleman, and the next he was being dismissive and cold. It was as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind as to what he wanted. “I bumped into you before that, you know. Yesterday morning.”

“I almost got mowed down by a bus, yeah I remember.” The guy took a regulated drink again.

“You shouted at me.”

“I did.” The guy raised a brow. “Do you want me to apologise, is that it?”

“N-no, I just…”

“Look. You wanna know the reason I was angry with you? You think I’m some sort of suicidal bastard, right? Some troubled soul who wants to wander off into the abyss and be lost forever?” He snorted again. “We’re a self-preserving race, you know. No one ever _wants_ to die. Some people just think they _need_ to. Trust me, you think you know people, but not everyone’s the same. You have to remember that.”

Marco frowned at him. He wasn’t making sense, he certainly wasn’t being welcoming, and he hadn’t smiled once throughout their entire exchange. Maybe he wasn’t suicidal and maybe he was, but there was definitely something there. He tilted his head to one side, squinting a little. “You’re right, nobody’s the same, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be thought of as any better for being aloof about it.”

Undercut’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I’m not trying to be a special fucking snowflake,” he snapped, “I’m just not a fucking sheep who follows the same thought pattern as everyone else, that’s all.”

“So, what does a non-sheep think?” Marco leaned forward, brows darting up. “Enlighten me.”

Undercut opened his mouth to respond, but then his phone went off. At the noise, everything about him seemed to crack. “Sh-shit, hang on,” he mumbled, fishing for it in his pocket. Marco noticed that, all of a sudden, his once steady hands were quaking. The moment he did, however, the guy drew one hand in close to his chest as he used the other to search for his phone. He was muttering nervously under his breath, and when he finally caught his unruly phone, he unlocked it with quivering fingers.

“Hello? I can’t talk right now, I’m… she has? Ugh, I’m sorry, she wasn’t meant to… what? N-no, no, I’m just having coffee… I know you have work soon… I know… I _know_ , Jesus, would you stop? I’ll be-”

He paused, listening to the person on the other end of the phone rant, and Marco saw the colour drain out of his cheeks, bit by bit. He had looked tired before- now he looked haggard. He took another gulp of quickly cooling coffee, and then another. Undercut had his beanie off and carding his free hand through his hair as he talked excitedly, and Marco couldn’t help but wonder how thick it was. It looked pretty thick… was it soft too? He nearly choked at the thought. _Stop thinking inappropriate things, you pathetic excuse of a man,_ his inner voice sneered. _Just because you can’t remember the last time you got laid does not mean you can get up close and personal with everyone you meet, especially not Grumpy McGrump._

Undercut hung up a few moments later, his hands still shaking, and Marco couldn’t help himself. “What was that?” he asked.

The eyes that flew to him looked scared, all of a sudden, like he’d caught him in the middle of something private. Undercut took a last shot of his coffee, Adam’s Apple bobbing in his throat, and practically threw a wad of leather at him. Marco grabbed it before it barrelled into his chest, and blinked down at it. His wallet? “I don’t-”

“S-shit, give it back,” Undercut said, scrabbling for it and sliding a very crumpled note out of it, slapping it onto the table and scooting from his chair like it was made of snakes. “I have to go.”

“Wait, what?” Marco blinked. “What do you-”

“I mean that I was here, and now I have to be somewhere else,” Undercut babbled, “S-so, uh, this is us done. I repaid you, a-and…”

Marco just stared up at him. He hadn’t even said ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’. Not that it mattered, but if the guy was so set on repaying kindnesses then that, surely, would have been his first port of call? But here he was, in distress and staring down at him like he was waiting to be excused. Marco couldn’t exactly anchor him there. He shrugged. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Undercut hesitated. It looked as though he wanted to say something else, like it was hovering on the edge of his tongue wondering whether it was worth taking the plunge or not. But then, his mouth shut and he turned on his heel, striding away from him at a pace that would be better suited to a run. Marco watched him go with a slightly open mouth, and managed to splutter out, “Don’t you want to know my name?”

The guy’s stride slowed. He looked back over his shoulder and let out a small, sad huff. And then he was gone.

Marco ran a hand through his hair with a sharp exhalation of breath. That had been… something else. Had it actually happened? He ruffled what little hair he had that wasn’t caught in the band and looked back down at the table- and froze.

Undercut’s phone was lying on the edge.

He glanced back up, hoping that he’d noticed it was missing, but of course that wasn’t going to happen. He looked back at the phone. He sighed. Fate didn’t seem to want him to just leave the guy alone, did it? He hesitated, before picking it up. It didn’t have a password, thank God, and he immediately went to the ‘contacts’ section, brow furrowing as he looked at the names. Not a single ‘mum’ or ‘dad’. Didn’t he have parents? Or did he _have_ parents, but they didn’t talk? Even so, the only number that looked like it would be any good was the ‘home’ number.

He sighed and pocketed it for the moment, rising to his feet and making sure that the hastily thrown note would cover the coffee before making his way back to the apartment, wondering why on earth he got himself into these situations.

* * *

 

He was still wondering the exact same thing an hour later.

He’d called the ‘home’ number the moment he got back to the apartment, perching the phone on his shoulder as he leaned back against the door as it shut. When it was finally answered, the breathless voice of Undercut came to him. After Marco had explained that he’d left the phone at the coffee shop, he had reluctantly suggested that Marco drop it off at his house- if, of course, he remembered the way. Marco promised he did, and once the conversation was over (no ‘goodbye’, he noted) he picked up his keys again. Before he had the chance to even open the door, a voice disturbed him.

“So who’s the guy?”

He nearly dropped his keys when he spun round. There, sprawled on his moth eaten sofa and accosted by a purring Batman, was Eren Jaeger. One ring-clad finger was scratching the cat behind the ear, whilst the other was running its way through his hair. His eyes had been shut, but now a deep teal was revealed to him as it opened a crack. “Aw, I didn’t mean to scare you.” It shut again.

Marco snorted weakly. “You didn’t scare me.”

“Bullshit, I totally did.” Both eyes snapped open. A grin began to split his face. “Sasha let me in. That ain’t a problem, is it? You’re not getting… company?”

Marco shook his head so violently he was surprised his head didn’t pop off. “N-no, I’m not, I was just, he was just, we were…”

“Hey, hey, don’t shit yourself. I ain’t your mother.” Eren stretched then, a yawn bursting from his chest as his back arched. Batman jumped off of his lap, satisfied, and padded away to survey his little kingdom from another angle. “Just thought we could do something today. S’been a while.”

“I…it has, yeah…” Marco smiled and crossed the room to meet him, Eren jumping to his feet the moment Batman freed him. They met halfway, and Marco could feel less of Eren’s ribs when he wrapped his arms around him than he had the last time. “You look so much better, I’m so proud of you!” he said.

“Psh, well, didn’t want to ruin this well-oiled machine of a body now, did I?”

Marco snorted into Eren’s shoulder and clutched him closer. The relief that was bursting through his chest was a welcome break from the usual concern and fear. Mikasa had thought that she was going to lose Eren last spring. He hadn’t looked bad, not really, but there was something in the way he acted that made Mikasa certain of it. It hadn’t ever been a physical thing. That was the thing with addiction; it ruined you from the inside and worked its way back out, like a worm burrowing its way into an apple. It squirmed and wriggled and ate away at you until there was nothing left to squirm and wriggle and eat away at. Eren had stood on the edge for a while, and everyone knew it. Marco was pretty sure Eren had known it, too. But stubbornness appeared to be a streak of Eren’s as well as Mikasa, and no matter how desperately he teetered on that precipice, he’d always wanted to lean that little bit farther- just to see if he could.

“I missed you, Marco,” Eren said, and it was with such warmth that Marco pulled away, blinking. One thing Eren didn’t do was sentimentality.

“Not going soft on me, are you?” he asked.

Eren leered at him. “Only if you’re paying.”

Marco’s brow rose. “I thought you’d given that up, too.”

“M’trying,” Eren shrugged. “It’s harder, somehow, than the drugs. Not to mention the job I have right now is fucking shit.”

“Welcome to the land of the minimum wage.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.” Eren’s gaze then wandered down to the phone still tight in Marco’s grasp. “Who’s phone? Can’t be yours, it’s too technical.” His eyes, if it were possible, seemed to deepen in colour. For the source of his bullying, Marco couldn’t see any reason why anyone would pick on Eren for his eyes. They were, for better want of a word, beautiful. The right eye was the teal one, and it looked out on him calmly whilst the left one was gold, electric and wickedly bright. _It could almost be tawny…_

Marco huffed. “Well, I don’t _actually_ know his name…”

“Marco Bodt, you sly dog,” Eren crowed, elbowing him roughly in the ribs. “We’ll make a Casanova of you yet.”

“No, no, not like _that_ …”

“You have to take it back? Can I come?”

Marco gaped soundlessly at him for a few minutes. Eren was a handful with people he knew- he was certain that Undercut would probably kill him. “No, you can’t! Definitely not, no, no way.”

…So here he was, walking down the street trying (and failing) to ignore the way Eren was mentally judging the people they passed. They couldn’t have looked more different walking alongside one another; Marco every bit the dark silhouette, and Eren beaming out like a homing beacon. The change in weather had at least meant he was wearing more clothes than usual; his slightly-too-tight-to-be-acceptable jeans had holes at the knees, and his loud coloured shirt was only a little hidden beneath a thin black jacket. Eren hadn’t changed style since university, and it didn’t look like it was going to change any time soon. Marco almost admired him for it. After the third glare Eren sent after a scuttling office worker, Marco gave him a nudge. “Hey. Cut it out.”

Eren kept his sour expression. “Not my fault. They keep staring at me.”

“Your violently yellow shirt might be offending them.”

“This is my favourite. Hate my shirt, hate me.” Eren expelled a breath from his lungs. “What’s wrong with this fucking city, Marco? Everyone just seems to get by and that’s _it_. I swear none of these idiots have had an original thought in their lives. They’re like drones.”

Marco snorted. “A bit unfair.”

“But true.”

“And we’re different?”

Eren dug his hands into his pockets. He shrugged. “We have things that we do. I used to get fucked off my face and ponder meanings of the universe, now I work in a bar. You help people.”

Ah, there it was. _Marco Bodt: he helps people._ He didn’t want to feel the sudden swell of pride that grew in his chest at Eren’s words, but he couldn’t help it. He never knew how to react in those situations: be modest, or agree? Either would get negative reactions, so he settled for a brief shrug and a picked up pace. Eren trotted after him, the smile returning. “You don’t count, anyway. You can be somebody. You chose to come here. Me, I got stuck being born here. Fate likes to fuck me over.” He kicked a loose stone as they walked. “You’re _something._ That’s better than being a sheep.”

_Sheep. Sheep sheep sheep._ Why did every thought Marco have turn invariably towards Undercut? He gave a heavy sigh and crossed the road in a heartbeat, clutching at the phone in his pocket as he walked. Once he returned it, he didn’t have to see the guy again. That was what he wanted… wasn’t it?

As though Eren could read his mind, he piped up, “Someone’s eager,” loud enough for Marco’s strides to falter. Marco darted a look to him, and Eren sniggered at the alarm on his face. “Oh come on, don’t look so shocked. You’re fucking nervous, aren’t you?”

Marco sniffed and turned his gaze back to the path in front of him. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Yeah, you do.” Eren gave him a playful shove. “You want on his dick, don’t you?”

“EREN.” Marco’s shout startled a few pigeons, and as they fluttered up into the air in surprise Eren just cackled beside him. Marco hid his face in his palm. Why did he have friends like this?

“I’m not an idiot, Marco- you were just as twitchy when you first met me. And, you know, viola, bisexuality unlocked.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t sleep with you.”

“Only because you knew Mikasa would probably rip your dick off.”

“Fair point. But it’s not like that, honestly.” They had reached Undercut’s street now, and Marco’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. No matter how much he denied it to Eren, he was nervous. He wasn’t even sure why, but his palms were getting sweaty and the adrenaline pumping through him told him it was a better idea to just get it over with or run. The ‘run’ option seemed very attractive right now, especially with the way Eren was peering at each door and wittering on about Marco’s ‘obvious’ crush. _It is not a crush, I’m just fucking confused by the guy_ , Marco told himself. _That is it. No crush. No feelings. No nothing._

“So, you said you don’t know his name, but you must have done something. How did you meet him?” Eren was asking, brow raised and smile threatening to break through.

“Well, uh…” Marco scratched the back of his neck.

“Marco.” Eren walked in front of him to stop them dead in the middle of the street. The eyebrow was still raised, his lips drawn in a fine line, and Marco blinked down at him in concern. “I was the one who helped you find your prostate in first year. You owe me a hell of a lot. So don’t go holding back on me.”

Marco groaned. “For _fuck’s_ sake,” he whined, throwing his head back to look blindly up at the sky. “Are you always going to hold that against me? You only told me where it was. You only _told me_.”

“Yeah and you wished for more,” Eren snorted, ducking before Marco could swipe at him. “But seriously, who has stolen fair Bodt’s heart?”

“He’s not stolen anything except my time,” Marco pressed, stopping before the door he vaguely remembered dragging Undercut to in his drunken state. He hated the way his heart jolted. 

Eren, unfortunately, noticed. “Marco has the horn,” he sang.

Undercut opened the door at the exact moment Marco punched Eren in the arm with as much force as he deemed necessary- which was a hell of a lot. “MOTHERFUCKER,” Eren swore, crumpling in on himself.

“Hello again,” Marco greeted, with a sunny smile. “Sorry about the mix-up.”

Undercut looked from Marco to Eren and back again. “Why’s he here?” he asked.

“O-oh, well I was meant to be meeting him and I figured I’d stop by first. He followed me.”

It was at that exact moment Eren straightened up- and both eyes flew wide open. Undercut froze. Marco was about to ask what was wrong, but Eren got there first. His shock soon morphed into a self-satisfied little smirk, and even as Marco opened his mouth to question him, he snorted, “Jean fucking Kirschtein,” like it was a curse. “You’ve decided to descend from your fucking ivory tower to mingle with the commoners, have you?”

A muscle in Undercut’s jaw twitched as the colour drained out of his face. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he hissed.

Marco shifted awkwardly on the step, watching the way Eren and Undercut’s glares grew steadily worse the longer they stood there. “S-so, you, uh, know each other?” he squeaked.

Eren’s chuckle was void of warmth. “Unfortunately,” he replied.

Undercut’s lip curled. “Fuck you, Jaeger, and get off my front step, you’ll contaminate it.”

Marco grabbed the back of Eren’s collar before he could surge forward and give the guy hell, and muttered in a barely intelligible language, “Sorry about him, he has the manners of a sewer rat. Don’t start a fight, please,” he added to an incensed Eren.

“Get off me, you overgrown Furby!” Eren hissed, wriggling in his grip. “I’m not gonna hit him, wouldn’t be worth the time.”

“Whatever,” Undercut scoffed. His gaze flickered back to Marco and seemed to lock there, holding Marco in place by invisible strings. _Damn those tawny eyes, damn them to hell…_ “I didn’t mean to leave my phone there. I just panicked. I don’t tend to-”

“It’s fine,” Marco said quickly, “Honestly! I don’t mind, everyone gets careless every now and again.”

Undercut stared at him for a moment, like he was trying to work something out in his head, before he let out a short huff. “Guess you should come in or some shit. So long as you keep quiet.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eren sneered.   

“He is not welcome,” he added.

“Fuck you Jean, I come as part of the package. Can’t handle that?”

Undercut- or Jean, Marco now knew, glared down at Eren like he wished his eyes could strike him dead, but he ended up letting another huff free of his chest and stalked away, off down the hallway, and leaving the door as an open invitation to the both of them. Marco deliberated on the edge for a moment, before stepping through the threshold- after all, he still had a reason to be there. “Behave,” he hissed in a low pitch to Eren as they shuffled down the blank white hallway.

“I will if he does,” Eren replied waspishly.

Marco knew that Eren wasn’t a people person- he never had been, in all the years he’d met him- but the hostility between him and Jean was almost physical in its intensity. Eren needed a reason to have such a strong hatred… surely? Marco knew him. He knew that he wouldn’t just hate someone for no reason. But… why?

He didn’t get the chance to ask. Jean’s head popped around the door of a room leading off from the hallway, still looking unimpressed, and said, “You want coffee? I was making lunch.” It felt like he asked out of social politeness instead of genuinely asking. Marco gave a small nod, and the head disappeared. He pushed the door of the room open and found a room that was only a little less blank than the hallway they’d just come from. The difference was that the room had a large window that was filtering in sodden grey light from the outside world. There were no seats in the room, only a selection of cushions and blankets, and as Marco swept his gaze around the room he realised that this wasn’t a living room but some sort of studio. A large manikin was stood in one corner of the room, and a massive chest that was opened wide enough to see art supplies spilling out of it like thousands of tiny tongues. Marco then spotted a pinboard to his right with hundreds of faded pictures pierced onto its skin, though none were of people; they were all of places, animals, and there was an awful lot of… 

“Galaxies,” he murmured under his breath, tracing the corner of one with his finger.

Eren snorted from behind him. “Figures. He was obsessed with space when I knew him.” Marco jumped when he then shouted, “OI KIRSCHTEIN, DON’T FORGET MY COFFEE.”

“You’ll get what you’re fucking given, shitstain!” was the charming reply. “And keep your voice down!”

Eren folded his arms and gave the door Marco assumed led to the kitchen a withering look. “Out of all the dicks in this city, you had to wanna suck this one.”

“Eren, shut up!” Marco succeeded in smacking him around the head despite the fact Eren tried to avoid it. Marco was a fast mover when he needed to be. “Stop being inappropriate! If you don’t leave off I’ll tell Mikasa about the time you fucked a guy on her bed in second year.”

Eren’s eyes showed real fear at that. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh Eren, you know I would.”

Eren gave him a sour look. “That ponytail looks dumb on you.”

Marco just laughed good-naturedly, and cuffed him upside the head. “Just be nice, for once? Would it kill you? Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean that he’s a-”

“Hey dickweed, you’re having your coffee black as the Ace of Spades and if you don’t like it you can fuck off out my house,” Jean hissed from the kitchen.

Marco visibly slumped. _Ah._ Eren gave him a look as if to say ‘ _I told you so’_ before giving the room a once-over. “Knew the asshole would come into money,” he muttered, “this place is huge.”

Marco frowned. “It’s just a house, Eren. I doubt that means he’s rich.”

“When you’re used to living in bedsits your entire life, nothing is ever ‘just’ a house,” Eren replied. “Jean Kirschtein got everything he wanted back at school and he gets everything he wants now.”

Marco let out a sigh and turned away. Trying to argue with Eren was an impossible thing; he was too highly opinionated to listen to anyone else. He thought in black and white, and nothing ever transcended that for him. That was when he spotted what was in the corner of the room.

It was a large easel, with an ample sized canvas propped onto it and held in place with clips. Marco took a tentative step towards it- and then another. It wasn’t finished, that much was obvious; there was still gaping voids in the canvas had hadn’t been filled with colour, but the main subject of the painting was almost finished. It was a horse, a gigantic horse, a kind that Marco hadn’t ever seen before, and it was staring straight out of the painting like it was a living, breathing creature. It could have raised its head and whinnied if Marco stared hard enough. The mane and tail weren’t done yet, but the lines had already been sketched in for where they were going to be, the skeletal hatching enough of a guide to the artist. He found himself wondering how on earth the artist had managed to get so many different shades of _black_ into the painting when the door creaked open and Jean cleared his throat. “Hey, Ponytail. Stay away from the painting, it’s not done yet.”

Marco spun around. “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to touch it or anything.”

“Well, no, cus that’d be really fucking stupid.” Jean strode over and handed him a mug of steaming coffee. He was still too pale to be healthy, but there was a little flash of colour in his cheeks now- though whether that was a good thing or not was something to be seen. “And you, asshole, here’s yours you fuckin’ freeloader.”

Eren sidled over with a look of utter venom thrown in Jean’s direction before he took the cup and tried to take a gulp. He whimpered at the way it burnt his throat.

“Did you paint this?” Marco asked, immediately returning his gaze to the painting.

“Yeah.” Jean’s voice sounded unsteady as he drew a little nearer, taking a sip of his own coffee. “It’s a work in progress. Just felt like doing it. Not a commission, or anything.”

“You do things on commission?” Marco’s eyes were getting wider.

“Well, yeah, but…”

“That’s great! You should, you’re really talented.” Marco only just managed to catch the way Jean’s eyes widened at the praise, and couldn’t help but feel a little saddened by just how shocked he was that someone was excited about his work. He clearly didn’t get enough money from it. “Did you paint it from a photograph, or-?”

“Nope. Just drew it. I dream about black horses a lot.” Jean was looking down into his cup as though he’d found something immensely important there. “Did it from memory.” There was a curtness to his words, but the flush on his cheeks suggested he was rather happy about Marco’s interest in the painting. “I just finished a few, so this is just practice.”

Marco smiled, and glanced back at it. “Wow… it’s pretty good practice.”

Jean gave him the wide-eyed look again, and Marco just gave him a broad smile.

“When we’re quite done popping boners at paintings,” Eren interjected, “you gonna give him his phone back or are you going to forget? I wanna go for lunch.”

Marco wanted to throw an insult at Eren, but he was probably right- he tended to be quite bad at remembering things. He fished the phone out of his pocket and handed it over to Jean, offering a small smile. “I guess we’ll both have to be more careful next time, huh?”  

Jean took it gingerly, holding it tightly with both hands like it was some sort of precious gift. “Uh, yeah… I guess so… you didn’t look at it, did you?”

Marco shook his head. “Only to find a home number.”

“You promise?”

Marco chuckled. “Scout’s honour.”

Jean looked down at his phone again. Then he glanced up. “What was your name?” he asked.

Marco blinked. “Oh, sorry, I should have said before. I’m Marco.”

“Marco…” Jean seemed to test out the name on his tongue, sampling it like a new food. “I think I preferred Superman. Or Ponytail.”

Marco laughed. “I dunno, I’ve only ever been called Freckles before now.”

There was a hint of something brewing under Jean’s surface, and the longer they stood together, the more Marco realised that he was trying to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. Then there was a buzz of static from the kitchen, a noise that seemed to leap Jean back to life. He darted from Marco’s side and back into the kitchen, muttering something under his breath, and Marco shared a look with Eren. Eren drew circles in the air next to his head, and Marco scowled. “I’m hungry, come _on_. Stop wasting your time here, the guy’s a stiff,” Eren hissed.

“You’re like a petulant child, you know that?” Marco said, draining his cooling coffee in a few gulps. “Wait a minute.” Eren threw back his coffee like it was alcohol, wincing at the burn it made in his throat.

Jean returned a minute later, and he had the same wide-eyed expression he’d had back at the coffee shop. “You have to go,” he said simply.

Marco blinked. “Why?”

“You just have to. Just go, I… I’m glad you brought me my phone. But now, you need to leave.”

“Fucking finally,” Eren announced obnoxiously loudly, and for a moment Marco thought that Jean was going to throttle him. He chose to instead just give him a dark look, one that Eren returned. Eren was heading for the hallway immediately, a spring in his step at the promise of food and escape from this man he clearly didn’t like.

Marco held back. “I’m sorry about him,” he said, “if I’d have known…”

“It’s fine. Just… go.” Jean looked close to pleading now, and it made Marco frown. “Go, go on.”

Marco held up his hands, handing Jean his empty mug and turning on his heel to reach the hallway. He heard the footsteps of the not-so-stranger following him, and he kept catching the fervent glances he was shooting upstairs. _The plot thickens_.

Once they reached the door, Eren was already outside, hands shoved in his pockets and bouncing on his heels eagerly. “C’mon Marco! I’m gonna eat your face if we don’t get food soon,” he whined.  

“Promises, promises,” Marco said with a roll of his eyes. He turned and gave Jean a smile, a polite and sincere smile that he hoped made up for Eren’s behaviour. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said, just to say something.

“You’re welcome,” Jean mumbled. “Guess I’ll see you around, Ponytail.”

“See you around,” Marco agreed, taking a few steps back from the door and towards a waiting Eren. He stopped and turned back, flashing him a bright smile. “ _Undercut_ ”, he added.

Jean seemed a little lost for words, or maybe it was because he was impatient and they had outstayed their welcome, but he shut the door remarkably fast and with a loud BANG. Marco winced.

“You trying to be smooth is like watching a fucking train wreck in reverse,” Eren commented.

“Shove off,” Marco said, elbowing him playfully as he reached him. “Didn’t you want lunch? And aren’t I buying?”

Eren hissed a _‘yesssss’_ of excitement, and interlocked their arms with a grin as they started to walk off down the street. Marco stopped when he heard Jean’s door open again, and the words “THANK YOU,” were shouted at him at about 100 decibels before the door slammed shut again.

Both Marco and Eren stood stunned at the edge of the pavement for a few minutes, until Eren muttered, “Well _that_ was fucking normal behaviour.”

Marco sighed and allowed himself to be dragged to the nearest sandwich shop. He thought seeing the guy again after the whole bridge incident would sate his curiosity, would answer at least some of his questions. But like one of those monsters in stories, when one question was answered, two more grew back in its place. Only when he was sat in a shop listening to Eren talk about support group and all other kinds of things did he try to switch off.

But he already knew that it was going to be a hell of a struggle to do that.


	3. You Think You've Got It All Worked Out?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whewt, the third chapter is upon us! Again, I just want to say thank you so much for the amazing support this fic has gotten, I'm so excited about the astonishing amount of bookmarks, kudos and general feedback I've been getting so I hope I please you all as it goes along <3 ((Also another super thank you to Hachi your art makes me die a little inside it's so good help me)  
> Have to say, this is the last 'sizing up' chapter I think- stuff's gonna get introduced a lot more in the following chapters, and a lot of the drama starts and shit kicks off. Sooo enjoy this while it lasts mwahaha. 
> 
> This chapter sees Marco having a charming run-in with the police (again), Marlow as a supportive co-worker *snorts* and Jean being...well, Jean. And a Doctor Who reference, go figure. 
> 
> As usual, you can find me on here: http://attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com/ and feedback is super appreciated! :)

Marco tried not to dwell on the stranger. He tried to keep himself busy, so busy that his thoughts couldn’t wander off rogue and fall on the man with a temper like a hot iron. And, a week later, he thought he was getting to the stage where he might have been okay with not having his questions answered. He wasn’t imagining conversations between them anymore, at least. He hadn’t heard anything else from the guy, nor did he try to get in contact- what would be the point? He’d said himself that he was doing Marco a service buying him coffee, and that was that. He didn’t want to make friends, and he certainly didn’t want Marco in his life. And that was fine by Marco.

_Yeah_ , he thought to himself with a roll of his eyes, _you keep telling yourself that, you loser. You want in on whatever secrets that guy has hidden away._

He was walking to work again, Bertha still not being in a fit service for travel, and with the sudden chill the autumn brought he had swapped his brown leather jacket for a long black coat with scrappy elbow patches. It may have smelt like ten cats at one point, but Marco liked it. It was warm. And, since the feeble ponytail was now a permanent addition (after Mikasa complimented it and Sasha demanded he let her do it for him every morning) he was looking more and more like he belonged in the bohemian cut of the city.

He crossed the road in a matter of bounds, and made sure to step out of the way of a trio of school kids charging through the milling throng of people. They were late, he noticed as he checked his watch. _He_ was late, but it hardly mattered; Marlow was opening up this morning anyway. He watched them dart through the people in a flustered rush, smiling to himself. They couldn’t have been any older than fourteen. Most of the fourteen year olds he’d gone to school with wouldn’t have given a damn if they were late. At least these kids valued their education. He chuckled at the thought. Wow, was he really getting old enough to start sounding like an adult?  

His attention only sharpened when the road the kids were running towards began to look a lot fuller than they expected. He picked up his pace. The light flashed green for them to go, but the police car that was haring its way down the intersection was either not paying attention or was just plain ignorant of their own rules. The kids had already started crossing before they noticed that the figure of trust was going to plow right into them if they weren’t careful. Two of them bolted- the third froze.

That was why Marco found himself charging into the headway of the police car’s path and shoving the teenager clear. He heard the blare of the car’s horn, the squeal of tires on tarmac as it tried to brake, but he kept running. It swung around with the force of a foot slamming on the brake- and missed him by inches. The acrid smell of burning rubber from the tires assaulted Marco’s nose, and he let out a cough as he gave the teenager another push to the other side of the road. They were blinking at him, wide-eyed and awestruck, but before they could say a word, Marco said, “Go on, get to school, don’t worry, just go.” He knew what would happen if they stuck around- the police would find a way, somehow, to pin it on them. The little group nodded and scattered into the crowd that was focused solely on him now, and he felt something settle in his chest.

“Hey! You!” Marco tried to bridle his grimace when he swung around to greet the police officers. It was hard. “What the fuck do you think you were doing, running out in the middle of the road like that?!” one of the officers shouted, leaning halfway out of their window. Marco didn’t know this one. Thank God. That’d save the awkwardness. What set his teeth was the fact that they seemed more annoyed about the ‘damage’ done to their car instead of the teenager they narrowly avoided having flung against their windshield. They didn’t even bother to get out of the car.

“All due respect, but what were you doing charging through a red light?” he asked calmly.

“Don’t sass me, asshole! How do you know it wasn’t an emergency?”

“That’s the funny thing about emergencies. You usually put on sirens.”  Marco glared at them. “You could have killed those kids. How would that look on your record?”

 “Ugh, we don’t have time for this,” the first officer said, “we’re gonna be late to meet the others.”

They started to drive off.

Marco should have let them go, and muttered about them under his breath to his friends later. He should have just ignored it, and carried on his merry way. But no. His frustration had to get the better of him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” he called, giving the back bumper a kick as it went past him.

The car screeched to a halt again.

Marco paled.

_Oh shit._

“You just assaulted a police vehicle, get over here!”

The doors were opening.

Marco bolted.

“Come back here you little shit!” were the words thrown at his back as he dived into the crowd, charging into a sprint the minute the people started to part for him. He wasn’t sure if they were egging him on or the police, but it did his ego good to think it was the former as he skidded around a corner in an attempt to shake them off. With a glance over his shoulder, he saw there was no such luck. “Shit, shit, shit,” he cursed, making a beeline for the indoor market before the officers could notice. He didn’t even hesitate at the entrance; Marco barged right into the heart of it, ducking and dodging and weaving away from carts, vendors and angrily shouting marketpeople as he tried to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest. The market was a familiar haunt for him, and he knew every nook and cranny to dive into if he reached it in time. Unfortunately, the men were so hot on his trail that it made any hiding impossible. Marco began to panic when he found that not only were they not giving up, but people were parting for them.

_Focus you fucking lunatic, if they catch you they WILL arrest you._

Marco swallowed down the metallic taste on his tongue and turned sharply to the right, nearly falling over a very small woman in the process. “Sorry!” he shouted over his shoulder, wheeling around to check that _yes they are still following me holy shit I only kicked their car what do they want from me?_

There was a wheelbarrow blocking his path from where some crazy old biddy had elected to take it out instead of her trolley, and instead of trying to veer off Marco just picked up speed. He could hear the squeaky skid of polished black shoes on flooring the moment he jumped over the barrow, and on landing heard one of the officers sigh an, “oh for fuck’s sake,” in his general direction. The clatter he heard a moment afterwards suggested that they had knocked it aside, amid squawking from said old biddy.

Marco cut back on himself, weaving through the crowd away from the angry officers, and couldn’t help but chuckle at the way one was involved in a heavy conversation with the clearly annoyed old lady. But his partner was still running, and it was the partner Marco recognised. It might even have been the one who’d caught him when he was trying to give that red handbag back to its owner. _Shit._ Marco had stopped running. He was wheezing, the breath coming to him in small, sharp gusts as he almost doubled over- but then he looked back up. His eyes locked with the officer’s, and there was a flash of realisation. He remembered. “Sssssshhhiiiiii-” And he was gone again.

His body was screaming at him to stop, that it wasn’t ready for such a hard work out, but he ignored it as he swerved to the left out of the market and cut across the busy road in front of him. Thankfully, there were no screeching taxis or buses anywhere, just annoyed drivers. He didn’t even dare to look behind him. He couldn’t. If the guy was upon him, he might as well not know. His lungs were beginning to burn like he was drowning, and as he dived down a familiar street he tried hard to keep them working. _Not far now_ , his mind chanted to his body. _Not far now and we might lose him. Not far, not far, not far…_

He let out a small sigh of relief as he saw the shop that was looming up in front of him. It wasn’t the garish shop in the world, but it was the only one on the street painted a dark, forest green, with the golden letters announcing it to be ‘ _M & M’s oddities and repairs’. _He picked up the pace. He couldn’t hear the sound of pounding footsteps anymore, but he still didn’t look around. He didn’t want to tempt fate. He did look over his shoulder as he got within distance of the shop, and saw the outline of the officer appear around the corner just as he charged through the doorway of the little place.

The guy who had been stood at the counter jolted upright with a snort. “Five more minutes ma’…” he grumbled, rubbing a hand over his groggy eyes. Marco tore off his coat and threw it at the nearest thing, which turned out to be some strange globe. He didn’t break pace as he took a jump over the counter and curled up underneath it with heaving breaths, trying to calm his feverishly racing heart. He made it. He’d made it. He was fine.

The sleepy shopkeeper peered down at him. The lack of surprise in his eyes made Marco feel guilty. “Marco?” he questioned. “You’re late.”

“Marlow, please, shush,” Marco urged, tucking himself in tighter.

Marlow raised a brow, mouth curling into a small smile. “Whatcha doing down there, grasshopper?”

“Please… not now…” he hissed as loudly as he dared

Marlow let out a groan. “Oh God, the police again?”

“Just pretend I’m not here.”

“You’re supposed to be here, you’re working today.”

“MARLOW.”

“Ugh, fine. But you know how I feel about lying to cops.” He rolled his eyes and stood in front of Marco, effectively barricading him into the cramped space while the tell-tale signs of the officer came closer and closer. And then, there was the tingling bell.

“You,” the officer snapped, pointing at Marlow. “You seen a guy run in here?” _No niceties,_ Marco thought. _They really mean business today._

Marlow blinked. “I see lots of guys run in here, this is a shop. They’re all so eager to see our prices.” His voice was low, thick and dripping with sarcasm, and Marco prayed he didn’t overdo it.

The officer’s voice was full of irritation when he replied, “I’m looking for a guy with dark hair, freckles, scar on one eyebrow?”

Marco’s pulse picked up. His scar was visible again today? He smoothed a chunk of hair not in his ponytail over it in an attempt to cover it up. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. “I don’t have the foggiest idea who you’re going on about, sir,” Marlow said, “I’ve only just opened up. Not seen anyone in here today. I’m sure whoever it was will get found by such an _esteemed_ member of the police department.” Marco didn’t even have to be watching to visualise the smug smile Marlow was throwing the officer.

The guy gave a huff and started walking around the shop, inspecting as he went. “If you want to browse, sir,” Marlow called out, “I advise you come back another time in your casuals. You’ll make the other customers nervous.”

“Shut it, mop head.”

Marco felt Marlow bristle, so he reached out and patted his boot. He didn’t realise how much that would startle Marlow. It earned him a kick in the gut. Marlow coughed to cover up the breathless wheezing Marco was doing, and grinned weakly at the officer. “Allergies. This time of year’s bad for them.”

The officer grunted. Then he said something that made Marco turn to stone. “Hang on, what’s this coat?”

_Oh yeah, Bodt. That was a clever idea, wasn’t it? Leaving your coat in plain sight where anyone could see it was a definite ‘bright spark’ sort of idea._

Marlow, however, took it all in his stride. He gave it a lidded glance and barely twitched. “That coat? Been trying to sell that for a while now. We don’t tend to take clothes, but this slipped past. It’s an alright coat, all things considered. Keeps the cold out. A bit past it now, obviously, and only someone with no sense would buy it but…”

Marco gave Marlow’s boot a firm prod with his finger for disrespecting his coat. He got another startled kick in return. As he curled up even tighter in an attempt not to cry out in pain and compromise his hiding place, the officer huffed. “The suspect was wearing a coat very similar…”

“Well maybe they were fashionable at some point in the early 90s, who knows. They wore all sorts of things back then.” Marlow’s dryness was beginning to grate on the officer- Marco could tell by the sounds of restless footfalls as the man thought about trying to get out- and eventually Marlow prompted, “Do you have all you need, officer?”

There was a grunt of affirmation, and a muttered, “Keep an eye out,” before the footsteps thunked out of the shop and the door slammed shut.

Marco relaxed.

Marlow gave him another kick.

“Ow!” Marco glared up at him from his place on the floor. “What was that for?”

“For almost getting caught, _again_ ,” Marlow said, his brow arching as he stepped aside to let Marco disentangle himself. “You need to be more careful, idiot. And if you get caught in here it’ll give us all the wrong kinds of publicity.”

Marco rolled out from underneath the desk and got to his feet with a huff, dusting himself off as he replied sheepishly, “I know I do, I’m sorry. But they don’t care a jot in this city, and-” Marlow silenced him with a look. Marco smiled helplessly. Marlow had been trying to get accepted into the police training program for years now, ever since he successfully graduated top of his class in Criminology at university, but there was still no luck. They hadn’t even looked at his application, Marco guessed. Still, Marlow was the sort of person they needed on the beat; someone who actually _cared_ about people, contrary to popular belief. Unfortunately, one lowly constable wasn’t going to change the entire force- but Marlow was sure as hell going to try. It also meant that he was a little touchy on the whole ‘police’ subject, and awkward about the way Marco always got there first when something needed sorting. “Anyway,” Marco recovered, sidling over to a large cardboard box that looked like it had seen better days, “anything good today?”

Marlow rolled his eyes but took the bait. “Not much. Most of it’s just junk from a house clearance, but there might be a few things in there that are salvageable. We could fix some up.” When Marco gave him a look, Marlow smirked. “Okay, maybe _you_ could fix some up.”

_M & M’s oddities and repairs _wasn’t actually owned by either Marco or Marlow. Their benefactor still owned the deeds, but let the younger men do what they wished with the shop, stating that they never really had the knack for business anyway, and the two liked it better that way. For two people so different, they worked well together. Marco could work on anything he set his mind to, and Marlow could pick out the things that would sell from the things that wouldn’t. It was a modest little shop, all things considered, but it trundled along on its little profit and they never failed to break even. It was a frequent stop for the locals, namely the older generation and the younger looking for vintage chic, but as Marco glanced up from the box, Marlow said, “No one’s been in yet, so I figured we could look through these boxes for potential finds. Sound good to you?”

Marco nodded. “Yup, fine with me!”

And so, they set to work. Marco rifled through the larger box, whilst Marlow took the smaller. The radio crackled above them as it tried to find a station to stick to during their search, and when it finally settled on a modern station Marco pulled out a small black book covered in dust. He blew on it to reveal the title, and frowned at the spine. There was barely any damage, but by the looks of things it was older than most of the other things in the box. He rocked back on his heels to leaf through the pages, and started to read until Marlow barked, “Hey! No slacking!” so loudly it made him jump.

Marco grinned and waved the book under his co-worker’s nose. “Look,” he said in weakly contained awe, “it’s a Dumas. It’s a 1943 version.”

Marlow squinted at it. “I don’t read books written before 1960, sorry,” he sniffed, returning to his own box. “He any good?”

“Well, Dumas didn’t _write_ it in 1943, it was probably more like 1843,” Marco explained with a smile. “And how can you not know Alexandre Dumas? He wrote _The Three Musketeers_? _The Count of Monte Cristo_?” When Marlow remained blank, Marco chuckled and shook his head. “He’s great. You should give him a try.” Marco wasn’t an avid reader, but he knew a good book when he saw one. He had read _The Three Musketeers_ in school, and he’d immediately been transported by the heroics and chivalry within the pages. There was a sense of comradery and loyalty he didn’t see that often in people, and he was often left wondering whether or not anyone was ever like the people in the stories.

He set the book down gently on the floor, with a tenderness he reserved for the more precious things he found, and continued to pour through the contents of the box with more care. Every now and again he would pull out an object and offer it to Marlow for analysis, and Marlow would either take it and examine it a little further before giving a yes or no answer, or simply take one look at it and wrinkle his nose. Marlow would often show something to Marco and ask if he thought he could fix it, and more often than not Marco would add it to the ever-growing pile of things to work on. Even if he couldn’t, he was willing to give it a try, especially if Marlow thought it would sell once it was mended. Marco managed to pick out three more books, a watch that looked to be in a repairable state and a few other odds and ends Marlow gave the nod of approval to before he heard the bell tingle merrily as someone walked into the shop.

He made to get up, but Marlow got there first. He shot up in an instant, giving Marco a playful shove back to the floor as he greeted, “Hello there, can I help you with anything?”

Marco snorted and returned to his work, until he heard the voice. “E-er, yeah, hi, I was just gonna… er… look around, so.”

His eyes snapped wide. _Undercut._ He shuffled away from the box he was knelt over to reach the desk, peering over the top of it to see if he was just imagining that slight twist of tone. But, sure enough, there he was, looking a little better than before as he looked around idly. He still had the black beanie crammed over his head, and the single ear sticking out suggested he’d put it on in a hurry. His clothes were hanging off of him like he was nothing but a hanger, and his jeans seemed to pool at his feet like they were a size too big for him. There were paint splatters on them, Marco noted, and as he turned to look at the row of books a lonely paintbrush jutted out of his back pocket like he had just left a painting session without warning. Marco frowned.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” he heard Marlow ask under his breath, and he looked innocently up at him. “I thought you were meant to be looking through those things. You feeling alright? You’re gawping.” His mouth was turned down in the typical ‘I’m concerned about you and you better not be sick’ gesture he was known for. Marco nodded and scurried back to the pile of objects, his stomach doing strange little hiccups of surprise. What was that guy doing here? He had been doing _such_ a good job of not bumping into him. He let out a sigh as he continued to sort through the items, but it was pretty much done; there was barely anything left that was worth salvaging. Gathering the broken pile into his arms, Marco rose to his feet, swaying slightly with the weight, and carried them over to the work bench a little further away from the desk. When he let the things tumble and spill out of his arms, he tried to sort them into the usual things. _Clockwork, batteries, new paint jobs, mechanics…_

Marlow, on the other hand, was clearly trying to incite some sort of conversation with Undercut. He seemed to be in a sociable mood- which was a rare occurrence. “What sort of books you like reading?” he was asking. Marco tried to immerse himself in his repair tally, but such a simple task wasn’t really worthy distraction material.

“Classics, mainly,” was the answer. Short and sweet. That was definitely Undercut.

“Don’t know much about that, I’m afraid. But I’m sure Mr. Swallowed A Dictionary would be able to help you out, if you’re looking for anything specific.” Marlow turned his head. “Oi, Marco. This guy wants Classics.”

Marco froze. He couldn’t deny that he’d been waiting for it, but even so, it was hard to get his body to turn around too eagerly. “Just a minute!” he hummed, trying to buy for time. When he did turn around, his gaze met Undercut’s wide one. He tried to forget the way his stomach jolted again. “Oh, hey. Fancy seeing you here!” he said, bringing a smile up out of the dark recesses of nerves he’d suddenly fallen into. “I didn’t know you read. Jean, right?” He didn’t feel right calling him that just yet- he still didn’t know anything about him, after all. Undercut was safer.

Undercut-Jean looked a little stunned that Marco was stood there talking to him, as though he had walked straight into a ghost. He even gave a little twitch when Marco said his name, like it was painful. “Y-yeah, of course I read, doesn’t everyone?” he muttered.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Marco said, glancing over at a sour faced Marlow. “But alas, there are uncultured swine in this place.”

“Don’t badmouth me in front of customers, or I’ll start telling him about the way you confess your undying love to any antique clocks that come our way,” Marlow added.

Marco snorted and turned back to Undercut, feeling a little less self-conscious now. “Actually, I just found a really nice book in a collection we had this morning if you want to take a look?”

“Uh, n-no that’s okay, I’m fine,” he said, everything about him tensing up as Marco went to move closer.

“It’s right here, it’s no trouble,” Marco began, moving away to pick it up. “And if you like books, I think you’d like it.”

“N-no, really, it’s fine, it was a stupid question, I shouldn’t have…” Undercut sighed. “It’s fine. I just came here to browse.”

“Oh.” Marco tried to stop the frown that crept to the surface, he really did. But once it appeared, he tensed even more and the comfort was broken. “Well, okay then.”

Undercut bit at his lip, and Marco noticed how cracked they were. “I need to go,” he announced, before plunging his hands into his pockets and almost tripping his way out of the shop. Marco stared after him, a little confused as to what had gone on there.

“What the everloving fuck was that about?” Marlow asked from behind him. “I know you can attract some crazies, Marco, but that guy pretty much topped ‘em all.”

“Who else do I know that’s crazy?” Marco asked, turning to prod Marlow hard in the side. “And who’s saying he _is_ crazy?”

Marlow’s body curled against the torment automatically, but the unimpressed look he shot Marco wasn’t lost. “Are you trying to suggest he’s not?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” Marco admitted, leaning on the desk and staring out through the nearest window. He could see the swiftly fading shape of the guy as he crossed the road next to the newsagents that never closed. “I don’t know much about him. I’ve only seen him a few times.”

“So you’re not friends, then?” Marlow asked.

Marco frowned. Friends? Would he want to be friends with someone like that? Undercut was definitely something else. He was creative, he was sarky and he was a big grump, but there must have been more to him than that. Were these feelings of curiosity and intrigue because Marco wanted to get closer to him? It didn’t matter either way; he was pretty sure that, after their encounter before with Eren, any friendly feelings the guy might have had for him were dead and buried. “I wouldn’t say we were, no,” he said finally after realising that Marlow was waiting for an answer. “Not friends.”

Marlow shrugged. “Ah well. Weird, but we’ve had worse in here. You got everything you can from those boxes?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I might need a few spare parts for some of the more complex things though, but I won’t know until I’ve given them a proper look-through.”  

“Cool. Let’s get cracking then, the sooner we sort that out the sooner you can start mending ‘em.”

“And the sooner you can start selling things to people,” Marco pointed out with a grin, settling down in the creaky old wheelie chair that Marlow pushed over to him.

Marlow gave him an absent smile in reply, and picked up the pile of books from the floor. “Exactly.”

And, as Marco settled down to work, he wondered if that was going to be the last weird encounter with Undercut.

* * *

 

It wasn’t.

In fact, it was the start of many strange encounters, and none that Marco could really explain. Instead of avoiding the shop now he knew that Marco worked there, like Marco thought he would, Undercut instead seemed to return every day or so, just to hide amongst the rows of books and ornaments and furniture like it was his own personal hide and seek playground. Marco would snatch glimpses of him as he attended to other customers, and Undercut would duck behind a shelf or shuffle out the door like the game had been spoiled. Marco wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, as since the first time he’d come in, he hadn’t tried to go near the desk, let alone talk to anyone. Marco often thought about trying to call out to him, but figured it would probably cause a bolt and he wouldn’t get anywhere.

And it wasn’t as though the guy was making _trouble:_ he was just wandering around the shop like any normal browser. Despite what Marlow insinuated, he wasn’t there to make Marco uncomfortable. If he did, Marco would have felt that familiar burn of a gaze on his back every time he turned to work on his watches, but there was nothing. Undercut paid him no attention whatsoever. He always stopped the longest at the books, though, and stared at them as though he was trying to commit them to memory. The way Marco caught him gazing at them sometimes was the softest he’d seen him look. He milled through the shelves, let his eyes roll over the same things, then slipped out of the shop like he was never there in the first place.

So he ignored him. He ignored the stranger who he wanted to talk to more than anything, and got on with his job. Soon, things were how they always were. Things were normal. Things were right. Marco tuned him out, and focused only on the items he had to tinker with on his worktop. Marco’s workspace was never really an organised affair; it was forever cluttered with odd pieces, glue, tools of varying shapes and sizes and the random nut or bolt, but it was a sort of organised chaos that Marco felt was organised _enough._ If it was a good day, he could repair a watch in about an hour or so- if it was a bad one, it would take him all day. The sense of achievement he got after finishing a piece, though, was worth the time it took. When he was working, nothing could get him out of his own little bubble except for the occasional call of his name from Marlow if a customer asked something he wasn’t sure of. The only difference was that now, every day or so, Marlow would break him out of his bubble just to grin and point at the retreating back of that familiar guy with the paintbrush sticking out of his pocket.

It took a week and a half for Marco to crack.

It happened when Mikasa wandered into the shop on her lunch break to visit him, and he was shaken out of his work mode by Marlow. “Mikasa, hi!” Marco said, his smile turning quickly into a beam as he leant on the desk separating them. “How are you?”

“Could be better, could be worse,” was her answer. She shot a look to Marlow. “How’s things, Marlow?”

At his name, Marlow snapped upright with military precision. “G-good,” he spluttered, “They’re good, I mean there’s things and stuff, and… stuff and… things.”

Marco raised a brow at his friend, trying not to laugh. Marlow’s crush was far too obvious. As his friend facepalmed with a groan, Marco turned his attention back to Mikasa. “So what brings you to this neck of the woods?” he asked her.

She pushed a small paper bag over to him. “I thought I’d bring you lunch, seeing as you never eat any.”

Marco peered into the depths of the bag and found a selection of sandwiches and fruit. He grinned. “Thanks,” he said, and meant it. “I was getting a little hungry…”

“You should be grateful I could snatch them back from Eren, he tried to run off with them. I swear that boy eats double his body weight in food every day.” She leant a little further on the desk and glanced behind Marco at his worktop. “What are you fixing?”

“Just a little old clock we found. It’s kind of cute actually, but I don’t think Sasha would let me bring it back to the apartment.” Marco stepped to the side so Mikasa could get a better look, and it was at that moment that Undercut decided to walk in. All eyes turned to him, Marco’s and Marlow’s with little surprise.

“Oh,” he said simply. He shoved his hands in his pockets and avoided their gazes, instead letting his eyes flick around the familiar corners of the shop. Marco couldn’t help noticing the way the bottoms of his ears were flushing red. “Are you… uh… are you taking lunch? I’ll come back later…”

“Yeah, and not buy anything again,” Marlow muttered under his breath.

Undercut heard him. His gaze darkened. “If you don’t want me to come in, you just have to say,” he spat, his hackles rising almost immediately.

“No, by all means, raise our hopes and dash them, why don’t you?” Marlow’s voice was droll, dry, and Marco knew that most people who didn’t know him found him a little grating. By the way Undercut tensed up, he was no exception.

“Look, I’ll fucking go if you want me t-”

“Aren’t you the guy from the bridge?” Mikasa interjected with a frown, pushing off the desk and wandering towards him. Undercut looked like he was caught in some sort of paralysis, his eyes snapping wide as he watched her get closer, and Marco was reminded of a rabbit freezing in the path of a stoat. He even _twitched_ when she got within striking distance. Mikasa blinked once. Twice. Then: “You _are_ the guy from the bridge.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you bothering my Marco?”

It was Undercut’s turn to splutter. “No,” he demanded, but his anger wilted under Mikasa’s stare. His eyes darted from Mikasa to Marco, the only part of his body that did seem able to move, and Marco stared right back at him. The lump in Undercut’s throat bobbed awkwardly. “I like this shop. Is that a crime?”

“No, but you never buy anything,” Marlow said boredly, leaning his elbows on the desk and fixing the stranger with a curious stare. “You come in almost every day.”

He was looking trapped, his eyes getting larger and more wild as he scrambled backwards to avoid their stares. “It’s not my fault your stuff’s fucking expensive,” he retorted.

“It’s not that expensive!” Marlow snorted.

Marco frowned. Now he understood.

He walked around the desk to reach the bookshelf Undercut was always staring at. He tried to pick out what he imagined had caught the guy’s interest, and after remembering he was a fan of Classics, he picked out three that matched the description. He shuffled over to them, nudging Mikasa aside slightly with his hip, and offering the three to him. “Which one did you want?” he asked.

Undercut didn’t step away like he expected him to. He instead let his eyes fall down on the books, staring at each one in turn, the fond expression springing to his face as he looked at them. It was like he forgot that, for that moment, anyone was there. His fingers brushed the cover of one of them, before drawing away. He frowned. “I don’t have any-”

“I know,” Marco shrugged, offering it to him regardless, “but I’m giving it to you. It’s been here a while. It deserves a new home.” He still didn’t take it. He was eyeing Marco suspiciously now, eyes flicking up and down like he was trying to figure him out. Marco chuckled, and nudged it into his chest. “Go on, take it. It’s fine.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. He cradled it to his chest like a child would with a treasured picture book, and Marco couldn’t help thinking how strangely adorable it seemed for such a sharp-edged guy to be so sappy over books. “I’ll pay you back,” were the next words blurted out of his mouth like a hurricane.

Marco grinned. “You like paying people back, don’t you?”

Undercut shrugged. “S’was how I was raised. You want free coffee or not?”

Marco tried to fight back the amusement in his voice. “Free coffee sounds great. Tomorrow lunchtime?”

“Guess so.” Undercut took a last suspicious glance at Mikasa before backing towards the door. “Thanks. For the book. I just… I’m not… thanks.”

Marco chuckled. “It’s fine, honest. I’ll see you tomorrow, and maybe I’ll be able to get to work without wondering why you’re here.”

Undercut flushed hotly despite the scorching glare he shot him, and then he was gone, darting out of the shop before Marco changed his mind. Marco smiled after him, and hummed something under his breath as he turned back to the desk and the lunch that awaited him. He tried not to meet Marlow’s incredulous gaze as he set the other two books down and picked up the first sandwich, but he only managed to get two bites in before he started to find it irritating. He cocked a brow. “Yes?” he said between mouthfuls.

“You just _gave_ a book away,” Marlow said.

Marco gave him a blank look. “Yeah. So?”

“You don’t _give_ books away. You ask for them to pay.”

“Oh.” Marco returned to his sandwich. “He couldn’t. Can’t you tell? He can’t afford to spend money on books. He’s broke.”

“ _He’s broke?!”_ Marlow squawked at him. “ _We’ll_ be broke if you keep giving away things!”

“It’ll get him out of your hair, won’t it? I’ll put some money in the till for it,” Marco replied, swallowing his mouthful as he spoke. “I could tell he was annoying you. And if he’d stood there much longer I think Mikasa would have given him an aneurism.”

“I’m really that talented?” Mikasa asked. “You flatter me, Marco.” She was still watching the progress of Undercut through the window. A frown crossed her face, and for a moment Marco was sure she was going to make some kind of comment about his behaviour. But instead, she just turned back to them and shook her head. “You’re too kind for your-”

“-own good, I know.” Marco took another bite. “I can’t help it. I just have the feeling that the guy needs-”

“No, he doesn’t need help,” Marlow cut in. “So what if he’s broke? Everyone in this city is broke, Marco. You’re broke. I’m broke. Mikasa’s broke. He’s not a special case.”

Marco let out a scoff and continued eating, refusing to respond.

“Be careful,” were the next words out of Mikasa’s mouth.

Marco gave her a dark look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that. Be careful. You’ve been hurt before. Don’t try to base all your hopes on some asshole with a death wish.”

Marco let out a sigh and threw a sandwich packet at Mikasa. “You know, shockingly,” he said, “no matter what everyone thinks, I’m not actually trying to get in this guy’s pants.”

He wasn’t. He really wasn’t. He was actually kind of offended that they would assume that, after… everything. Mikasa knew him better than that, and he saw the sudden realisation in her expression as he let out a small sigh. “I didn’t mean it like that…” she said. “I meant… getting close to anyone. You need to be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m naïve. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Mikasa didn’t say anything. Marco felt bad for snapping, but it by the way she replied to his apologetic smile with one of her own suggested he was forgiven. He sunk further into his seat and watched her make small talk with Marlow instead, and Marlow inevitably mess up any chance of getting a date or even a number from her. He was quite adorable, all things considered, especially when he got flustered- which was usually around any woman he met. Mikasa was a special case; Marco could never figure out if Marlow was scared of her or in awe, and he wasn’t sure Mikasa knew the difference either. Talking to her wasn’t exactly difficult, but Marco had had years of perfecting it. Marlow didn’t.

Marlow got giddy when he got things right, and Marco was pretty sure he’d never seen Marlow smile quite so genuinely when he was around Mikasa. Marlow was a grumpy bastard at heart, but it was a good heart nonetheless. But, he thought with a mirthful smile, Mikasa couldn’t be any less interested. He knew the look she gave someone she liked the look of, and so far all she had given Marlow was polite conversation. Still, he thought as she tittered a little at a fumblingly awkward joke Marlow made, he could be wrong.

Things changed when Marco started to phase out their talk. He hadn’t been paying attention to the radio. Marlow usually turned it off when they were having lunch, because it meant it was less likely that Marco would get distracted. He didn’t often forget, but this time he had. This time _had_ to be the time that it came on.

Marco didn’t even have to hear too much of it. That was the problem; there wasn’t a fuzzy little instrumental before the lyrics came to knock him sideways. No. The words came immediately, like a slap in the face.

“ _Hey Jude… don’t make it bad…_ ”

The sudden feeling that assaulted Marco’s insides couldn’t be described with a single word. It was like he felt a step closer to the grave, like a large hole had been carved out of his chest to leave him hollow and empty. It was like something was mocking him. It was when the loneliness started to creep up on him like a vulture ready to pick his bones clean.

It was a combination of all these things, and Marco couldn’t stop them.

His reaction was immediate.

He spent the rest of the day apologising over and over for breaking Marlow’s radio by dropping it on the floor when it refused to shut off, when everyone, even Marco, knew he’d thrown it.

* * *

 

He didn’t meet Undercut at lunch. He got a call in the morning to say that something had come up, but if they could reschedule for when Marco got off work then it would be ‘good, I guess’. It was more than alright; Marco had been staying behind for the last few nights to have the chance to work on Bertha and whatever seemed to be the problem with her, and he was certain that he would get her up and running in another day or two of poking around.

He also didn’t feel like leaving Marlow alone at lunch- he felt like he owed him all the niceties and friendliness in the world after what happened with the radio. Marlow was still tiptoeing around him a little bit, like he expected Marco to at the slightest moment throw something else on the floor in a memory-fuelled panic, and Marco couldn’t help but hate himself for it. He thought he would get over it. He thought he would be able to listen to a _song_ after all this time and not feel like someone had taken a gun and shot him straight through the chest. But no- he still had a way to go before that stopped happening, it seemed.

So, after he’d wheeled Bertha into the back room of the shop and worked on her for an hour or so after closing, he locked up. He made sure he had his pills in his pocket, and when he was satisfied he set off. He hoped he wouldn’t have to take them when he was with Undercut- that would cause all sorts of questions he really didn’t want to answer. He was counting the hours he would need as he walked back down the street to where Pixis’s Moustache was, mentally working out whether he could get away with it. He figured that yeah, he probably could, and was halfway through a sigh of relief when it stuttered in his lungs.

Undercut was already there. He had a cigarette between his lips, the smoke coiling up and making mini signals in the air above his head as he waited. He looked cold, Marco noted. The gaunt look was gone for the moment, though, which was always good. Maybe he was getting more sleep. When he got close enough to be spotted, Undercut’s eyes pierced through the curtain of smoke to find him. They blinked slowly, like he couldn’t quite believe Marco was there, and then the cigarette was out of his mouth and trapped between two fingers. “Hey, Ponytail,” he greeted. His voice was a little shaky.

“Hey Undercut,” Marco said, slipping a hand into his pocket. He felt nervous, all of a sudden, and he wasn’t sure why.

He snorted at the nickname. “Suppose I deserve that.”

“Didn’t see you in the shop today.”

“I didn’t need to go in today.” When Marco looked confused, he sighed. “Well, I’d already got your attention, so I didn’t need to go and flog a dead horse. Besides, like I said, something came up earlier. I couldn’t have come.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed. “Wait- you were coming to the shop to see me?” he asked. Marlow was right? He just got a stare in return, albeit an awkward one. “Why didn’t you just ask if I wanted to get coffee again?”

He gave a loose shrug. “I figured you wouldn’t want to.”

“You can’t assume something like that,” Marco said softly.

Undercut’s eyes were feral with intensity when they shot back up to Marco’s. The tawny eyes made him jump a little. “Well, I like the shop too,” he defended. “But I thought I was a bit obvious. Next time I’ll try jumping in front of a bus again. That worked fine last time.”

“Don’t,” Marco shook his head, “don’t even joke about that.”

Undercut considered that for a moment, before nodding. “Okay. It’s a bit cold to sit out here- you wanna take these coffees to go?”

Marco nodded. “Sure. I could do with a walk.”

He noticed how, when they got into the warm and cheery indoors of the shop, that there weren’t many people in there. He was going to ask why they didn’t just sit indoors, but he noticed the way Undercut drew in on himself, and guessed. _The guy really doesn’t like people._ They ordered their drinks, Marco’s order of a mocha raising a brow from his companion, but then they were walking back out with their cups warming their hands. Undercut pulled off his beanie to reveal a mess of ash-blonde hair, running his free hand through it in an attempt to tease it into submission. Marco wasn’t sure where they were walking, but they were walking fast. He was the one to break the silence. “Why did you want to see me?”

Undercut bit his lip. “M’ trying to figure you out,” he replied finally, taking a sip of his coffee a breath later. “You confuse me.”

“You know, that would sound pretty weird if I didn’t understand exactly what you’re talking about.”

Undercut frowned at him. “What? Bullshit.”

Marco gave a helpless shrug. “You’re interesting. Can’t say much more yet.”

Undercut scoffed. “I’m not interesting.” They turned a corner. “I’m not anything. I’m just me. Spinning around in nothing.”

“Opinions are opinions,” Marco replied, “and sometimes it’s good to listen to them.” He got nothing but a snort in reply. He noticed that they were walking through the restaurant section of the city, along the cobbled path towards the river they had both taken a dip in, and he froze up.

“Don’t shit yourself, I didn’t drag you here for a replay,” Undercut said, though his pace slackened to keep them walking side by side. “I just like it. The river, I mean. I walk along here a lot. Helps me think.”

“What about?”

“Lots of things.”

They reached the upward curve of the bridge and stepped onto it together, that one thought steadying Marco. He was getting ready to grab at Undercut and haul him back from the side- but true to his word, Undercut didn’t make any move towards the edge. He merely looked out over the river, watching the way it cut sluggishly into the grey earth either side of it. He muttered something that sounded like ‘not dark enough yet’ before he turned back to Marco. “So. You said you found me interesting. That means you have questions you want to ask me. What are they?”

Marco blinked at how brash he was. “Well, yeah, I do, but… okay, I have one.”

“Shoot.”

“You never explained to me why you were so angry that I helped you,” Marco said. “You started to, but you got cut off.”

Undercut’s brows rose up so they were hidden by his mop of hair. “You really wanna know?” he asked, unsure. When Marco nodded, he sighed. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Try me.”

“Alright.” He turned away from him and leant his elbows on the side of the bridge, staring down into its depths. “I was angry with you because you’re selfish.”

Marco choked mid-gulp of his coffee. _Well. That was unexpected._ He didn’t like the way his innards seemed to jolt at the suggestion. He didn’t want to get angry… but he was. A little. The urge to defend himself rose up like an angered animal, and he fought to keep it under control. Undercut sighed and took another calculated drink of coffee. “I’m selfish?” Marco repeated faintly. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. How could this stranger claim something like that? He didn’t know him. He hadn’t even tried to.

Undercut nodded at his question, and reclined a little further as though he could tell that Marco’s initial reaction was to snap at him. “Yeah. Selfish.” He eyed him for a second before avoiding his gaze again. “I told you you wouldn’t like it.”

“How can you say that I’m _selfish?_ ” Marco hissed, lowering his voice when a peaky looking woman walking past scuttled faster.

Undercut raised a brow, challenging, and there was a strange expression that settled over his face. It was the calmest he had looked, but Marco was sure that it was more close to mocking. He was almost smiling. “Someone famous once wrote that anything that’s ever lived is predominantly selfish. Every living creature on this earth looks out for itself. Even the most selfless thing in one person’s eyes can be seen as selfish by another’s. It’s nothing personal, mate, it’s just biology.” He shrugged. “Living things seem to care, to nurture, to be there for their fellow species, but in the end it’s all just some big joke reality plays on us. Every living creature on this earth dies alone. And you don’t seem to be in on the joke, by the way you’re glaring at me.”

Marco shook himself. “I’m not glaring,” he defended weakly, earning himself another scoff. This man was… was _obnoxious._ He was rude, he was presumptuous, and he was so, so cynical about the world. But, the worst thing about it all? He was _intelligent._ He was a lot cleverer than Marco had pinned him down as. He had big ideas about the bigger picture, and even if he was a little offended by the idea, Marco was intrigued all at the same time. He scooted a little closer, his own elbows propping up on the railing. “You believe that?” he asked.

“I don’t believe. I know,” Undercut answered. “Everyone does things for a reason, right? So you’re walking down the road, you see someone in trouble, you help them out. Do you do it because it makes the person happy, or you? You do it cus you get a kick out of it. It makes you feel wanted, or valued. Something like that.” He cast his gaze over at Marco for a moment again. Marco saw the embers of something in his eyes. “You get pleasure out of helping people, I could tell, and that means a whole lot of things.”

“Like?”

Undercut’s eyes narrowed. “Like you have something inside that you don’t let on at first meeting.”

Something about his words managed to penetrate through the veil Marco threw up around him so often. He did glare then, and glare properly as he returned to his coffee, gulping it back despite the fact it burned his throat. He didn’t want to be around this person anymore. He didn’t want to start talking about himself.

_Anything but that, drift the conversation, change it completely, leave the guy in the lurch if you have to but don’t ever talk about yourself._

“What happens if you’re right?” he made himself ask.

“Nothing, really,” Undercut conceded, taking another gulp of coffee. “It’s just the way things are. I just like knowing I’m right.”

“Are you always so insufferable?”

Undercut let out a short bark of a laugh. “Usually. ‘Insufferable’ is a new word for it, though.” He squinted at him. “Does that bother you?”

Marco shrugged, bringing his cup to his lips. “I don’t know.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Marco choked again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? You find me interesting. I find you interesting. It’s kind of inevitable that we’ll end up seeing each other a lot.”

“If this is a hand offering friendship you’re not going about it very well.”

“I never said I was good at the whole ‘friends’ thing.”

“Oh, so you consider me a friend?”

Undercut looked a little pale as he scuffed his shoes against the bars. “If you want to be,” he muttered.

At that moment, which Undercut looking anywhere but at him, and shuffling his shoes like he was a four year old asking for friendship, Marco’s anger vanished. It was like it was never there in the first place. He smiled. He sidled a little closer. He bumped him playfully with his shoulder. Undercut looked at him as though he’d gone mad, wondering why on earth this man he’d just insulted and called selfish was smiling at him, and that just made Marco titter. “You sound like a kid in nursery,” he commented. “You’re really not very good at this whole ‘talking to people’ thing, are you?”

He said it softly, but Undercut bristled at his words. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t come into your shop and do things like a normal person, but if you hadn’t already gathered I’m not exactly fucking normal.”

“It doesn’t matter. Normal is boring. And everyone has their quirks- trust me, you’re fine.” Marco gave him a small smile. “Come on, I know Eren Jaeger. I know weird.”

Undercut snorted, and finished off his coffee. “Are you and he an item or something?” he asked, rifling around in his pocket to bring out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

Marco blinked. “No, what gave you that idea?”

“You seem close.” He lit up. “Have to admit I’m glad. He’s an asshole. You deserve better.” He pursed his lips as he took the first drag. “What about that scary chick? She your girlfriend?”

“Ex.”

“No fucking kidding.” As the nicotine ghost drifted out of his mouth like a geyser, he said, “Can’t imagine you two together. She’d wipe the floor with a sucker like you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He pointed at himself with the cigarette trapped between his lips. “Not normal,” he stated, “remember?”

Marco rolled his eyes. “You want to be normal? Let’s start off like normal people. When normal people meet, they ask what each other’s names are. So…?”

Undercut stared at him, unimpressed. “You know my name,” he said, refusing to play along.

“You never introduced yourself, Eren did, and he’s biased.”

“He’s an asshole is what he is.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment.”

For a moment it seemed like he wasn’t going to do it. But then, he sighed. “It’s Jean. My name is Jean Kirschtein.”

“ _J-ahn_ ,” Marco sounded. He grinned. “Sure it’s not ‘Jeen’?”

“Yes I’m fucking sure how to say my own name.” Undercut rolled his eyes. “What about you, tell me your name- like I don’t already know.”

“Marco Bodt.”

“That’s a shitty surname.”

“You say your own name funny, that’s gotta be worth some degree of teasing.”

“It’s French, oh my _god_ ,” Undercut retorted. Marco had to admit, he didn’t usually find anger in people funny, but for some reason watching this guy rant and rave about France and his name and people getting it wrong was hilarious. However, chuckling was probably the wrong social thing to do in this situation. He still didn’t know him enough to predict whether or not the guy would punch his lights out.

“Well, if you’re French, how come you sound like you’re from the North?” he asked, fighting back the smile that was so desperate to worm its way to the surface.

The guy-who-was-definitely-French-Jean folded his arms, his eyes on the river below them and the glower still etched onto his face. “Lots of countries have a North,” he grumbled, “even France.”

“But not as Northern as you sound.”

“Look, fuck you, I moved when I was small alright?”

Marco bit his lip to stop the laughter from breaking free, but it was a feeble attempt. All he needed was a single confused look from Jean to break him. The laughter trickled out like water, bubbly and bright, and then he couldn’t hold back. Jean’s incredulous staring just made him worse; he nearly dropped his coffee into the river with how violently his shoulders were shaking.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Jean scoffed, giving Marco a tentative nudge like he wasn’t sure if he could get that close yet, “S’not my fault I have a stupid accent.”

“It’s not stupid,” Marco said immediately, snapping out of his laughter to glance at him. He bit back another chuckle as he looked at him. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” He wasn’t even sure why he was finding it so funny. He realised a beat too late that it was a sort of giddy relief. “…you’re not as scary as I thought you were,” he admitted.

Jean frowned. “I scared you?”

Marco shrugged. “Well I’m not exactly used to the reaction I got from you. I thought you hated me.”

The way Jean looked at him made Marco feel like he was going mad. The amount of pure confusion and hurt in his expression was enough to ground him and feel somewhat guilty for saying anything. He knew how wrong he was when Jean turned away from him and looked back at the river. He sighed. “Hate is a very strong word,” he said after a while. “I don’t think I could ever hate anyone. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

Marco wanted to reach out and pat him on the shoulder, tell him that it was alright, he didn’t think that anymore, but he didn’t. He figured that would be pushing boundaries far too much for a first proper talk, especially for someone like Jean. So instead, he offered him a smile. “Well, however much of a pussycat you are, I’ll deal with it.” And then, in an infantile gesture of friendship, he offered his hand with a broad grin. “It’s good to meet you, Jean.”

Jean eyed his hand like it was a spitting cobra, but after a few lonely wiggles from Marco’s fingers, he slid his hand into Marco’s and shook it firmly. “Nice to meet you, Marco, you fucking nerd,” he added.

“Hey, friendship means you can’t call me that!” Marco grinned as they both shoved their hands back in their pockets and wandered back the way they had come.

“I never read that in the fine print,” Jean replied. “Nerd,” he added as an afterthought.

“Fine, dork.”

“Idiot.”

“Doorknob.”

“Fucking doorknob, really?”

Marco sniggered as they continued their path through the crowd, and for the briefest of moments, he thought he saw Jean smile.


	4. We could write a bad romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another update is upon ussss whoopwhoop man these chapters are killing me softly *dies* Thanks again for all the amazing feedback, I really do appreciate it- it really motivates me to write this thing <3
> 
> But anyway, this chapter also has a work in progress name, the 'why are all the secondary characters so cool please stop'. Ooops. But here we have old friends returning from the brink, heart to hearts on almost-balconies and Marco getting himself in more trouble than he really should be. Silly ol' baby. And, obviously, Jean's being an awkward little nerd again. You'll see. Ehe.
> 
> PSSSST guys if you haven't seen it already see what Hachi did: http://hachidraws.tumblr.com/post/100008652472/ref-for-the-tattoos-x-x-pose-reference-x HELP. ME. LAWD. If you didn't love Marco enough, well... here's further proof. Also, give Hachi some love, they totally deserve it <3
> 
> My tumblr: http://attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com/
> 
> Enjoy!

Neither Marco nor Jean talked much on the walk back. They walked in a companionable silence, something that wasn’t as awkward as Marco thought it would be. The air wasn’t as tense between them than it had before, the silence oddly comforting, and though Marco could feel the way Jean kept casting looks at him, he didn’t make an effort to start conversation. Jean wasn’t the talkative type, he reckoned, and he didn’t want to push him away by being a chatter-box. The coffee shop soon loomed ahead of them, and Marco stopped short as they reached it. “Well, I’m this way,” he said, pointing to the left.

Jean blinked, and looked in the opposite direction. “And you know I live that way.”

Marco smiled, his hands sliding into his pockets as they faced off. “Well, guess I’ll see you soon, then,” he said.

Jean nodded. “Yup, if you want.” The ash from his cigarette fluttered in the air as he moved. “D-do you see that ex chick of yours every lunchtime?”

Marco grinned. “No, she works pretty far away. I see her in the evenings usually.”

“Oh.” Jean flicked his cigarette onto the ground and sniffed. “Well, if you wanted, you could…” he made a sort of vague hand gesture in the air, and Marco bit his lip to keep himself from smiling too much.

“Lunch sounds great. Tomorrow?”

Jean looked a little startled at that. “You wanna see me tomorrow?”

Marco blinked. Was that too keen? Was he forcing it on Jean too much? Then he saw the confusion in Jean’s eyes, and he understood. Jean was wondering why he would want to see him so soon. He let out a small sigh. “Yes, Jean, I want to see you tomorrow. That alright with you?”

“Is that alright with _you?”_ Jean asked. He looked suspicious, as though he was waiting for Marco to yell ‘April Fools!’ and run off in the opposite direction. That look made Marco’s stomach twist. _How many times had he been let down that it became his default thought?_

“Jean… it’s great. I’d like to have coffee with you again tomorrow. Honestly.”

Jean’s face seemed to relax of its own accord at his words, and the ghost of a smile flitted across his lips for a split second. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. “Well, I’ll see you then, in that case,” he said, and before Marco could call out a goodbye he spun on his heel and strode away, his pace far too quick for it to be normal. Marco watched him go with a small chuckle. He liked to think that the colour in Jean’s face when he turned and muttered a soft, “see you later” was down to him. Then he remembered how Jean had called him selfish, and the pride vanished- replaced instead with a cold, hard feeling.

He shook himself and continued his walk back, trying to forget Jean’s almost- smile and humourless chuckle. At least he felt like he had the right to use his name now.

His thoughts were soon on how the cold was beginning to bite, and not the elusive guy. He brought his coat tighter around him, cursing the fact that the buttons were all pretty much gone by now, and vaguely thought to himself that he would need to invest in a better coat for the coming winter. He crossed the road from the coffee shop and carried on, still lost in thought about coats and almost-smiles, and picked up the pace. It really was getting cold, and the nights were drawing in dark too. He wished that he’d had the chance to fix Bertha properly; he could have been back at his apartment in minutes instead of trawling through the backbone of the city trying to keep his bones from chilling in place. He turned the corner- and promptly bumped into someone heading in the opposite direction.

“Watch where you’re fucking going!” the guy hissed.

Marco blinked, stepping aside. The guy was teenage, dressed in dark clothes and wearing a permanent scowl that had probably been there since birth. “Sorry,” he said, taking another step away from the teenager.

“Yeah, you better fuckin’ be.”

Marco rolled his eyes- teenagers had enough hot air to fill a hoard of zeppelins- and made to carry on walking. But then he halted.

There was a huddle of people on the opposite side of the road, a huddle that looked as though it was hiding something in its midst. Marco paused. “Just keep walking,” the teenager behind him instructed, and Marco felt the familiar flare of suspicion. He looked between the huddle and the kid who was glaring him down and tightening the meagre muscles in his arms as they folded against his chest. He noticed a flurry of movement from the centre. One of the figures was delving in, trying to pull something from whoever was in the middle, and Marco’s jaw set. “Hey, I said keep walki-”

Marco sensed the hand reaching out to shove him, or grab him, and reacted immediately. He swung around and landed a punch to the middle of the teenager’s stomach, hearing the hiss of air leave the youngster’s lungs as he fell to his knees. It looked as though he wanted to call out; his frantic sucking in of air was evidence enough to suggest he wouldn’t be making noise any time soon. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here. You don’t want to get involved any more than you already have,” Marco muttered, giving the teenager a less than gentle kick as he strode towards the little group. The kid was clearly a lookout. There were a few of them gathered around whoever their poor victim was, three or four it looked like, and Marco tried to assess the situation. He couldn’t do it in time. One of them looked up. “Hey, fucker, don’t come no closer!” he warned, a snarl curling in his voice.

Marco glared right back at him. “You should all go. Now. Before you regret it.”

That got the attention of the others. They all swung around to stare at him, and Marco caught a glimpse of the man recoiled on the floor and clutching his belongings close to him. It was only a snippet of time, but it was enough to make Marco’s stomach spike and his blood race. “Whatcha gonna do, call the police?” one of the others sneered, a blonde with a broken nose.

Marco rolled his eyes. “Hardly. Both you and I know that there’s no point in that.”

“So what are you gonna do?” The ringleader, an older man with a serpentine grin and lifeless black hair demanded.

Marco smiled thinly. “Something stupid, probably.” And that was when it happened. He saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye as one of the gang made to step a little closer, curled his hand into a fist, and made to swing it back. That was it. He ducked, missing the punch lazily swung his way, and then shot back up with a fierce blow to the unfortunate attacker’s abdomen. The teenager’s entire body seemed to wrap around his fist, a muffled curse of pain audible through taut lips, and then Marco pulled his fist free and stepped aside, giving a kick to the shin to bring his assailant to his knees faster. He looked back at the ringleader, who stood wide-eyed. “Something like that, I guess.”  He smiled again. “Now, are you to going to leave?”

The gang’s eyes turned as one to their fallen friend, wheezing on the concrete, and then the ringleader’s gaze shot back to Marco. “You made a big mistake there, hero.”

But Marco was ready. The blonde snapped out of his daze and shot towards him with the force of a cannonball, but he managed to sidestep the attack and bring his elbow down hard into the small of the blonde’s back. With a hiss of pain he went down, spitting and hacking, and Marco turned to the cowering victim. “Run!” he ordered, dodging a punch thrown his way by another gang member. The guy scrambled to his feet, but didn’t get far until he was cornered.

Marco was paying too much attention to the gang’s victim- he was suddenly blinded by a punch to the face, the blow wrenching his head to the side with a guffaw of triumph from the one responsible. He blinked, dazed. He could see stars. Could teenagers punch that hard now? Were they secretly thirty with years of illegal street fighting under their belts? _Wouldn’t surprise me_ , he thought.

He shook himself- but not in time. He got another hit, this time to his stomach, but as he bent double to get his breath back he glanced up at the height he was at.

_Idea._

He rammed his head with as much force as he could muster into the guy’s groin. The laughter was quickly replaced with a rather unmanly squeak as the guy went down, twitching and wailing as he clutched his crotch with a look of utter despair. Marco straightened up, but barely had enough time to breathe as the blonde rushed him again. He’d recovered from the winding he’d sustained before, and now he knocked into Marco with the force of an angry bullock, slamming him into the wall nearest them with a bestial growl. Marco grimaced in pain as his back exploded in thousands of little aches screaming at him to desist, and then he was staring straight at his assailant. “Not so big now, are you?” he hissed.

Marco glared at him through the haze of pain he was trying to fight through. He definitely wasn’t a teenager. Maybe the ringleader wasn’t either. He tried to fight himself free, but the blonde was surprisingly strong. He had him totally pinned and immobile against the stonework, leering at him like he was winning some kind of childish game, and Marco felt the anger prickle in the back of his mind through the pain that washed over him. He couldn’t even move when another punch found its marker, his jaw blazing at the treatment. He spat out a gobbet of blood and fixed the blonde with a toxic look through the strands of his hair that had fallen free. “You’re fucking committed, aren’t you? Maybe I’ll just keep smacking that head of yours around until you pass out.”

Marco’s lip curled. He managed to shift at just the right angle to get his leg in a good position for a kick, but he couldn’t move without the blonde noticing and blocking. Shit. _Shit shit shit. You didn’t think this through, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew and it looks like you’re going to be the one with chunks torn off._ He tried to twist his body again, but it was impossible.

Then, a voice called out.

“Hey, fuckbagels, what the shit do you think you’re doing?”

Marco knew that voice. He knew that accent. All heads snapped to the head of the street, and saw a tall silhouette under the glare of the street lamps. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” the voice continued, the silhouette stepping closer, “but a bunch of little shitheads such as yourselves shouldn’t be out so early. That ain’t the etiquette, boys.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the ringleader spat.

The silhouette finally became a person when they stepped under the nearest street lamp. They were tall, sturdy, and walked like the world owed them a favour. Everything about their body was both sharp and elegant at the same time, and Marco suddenly realised why he had thought Jean was so familiar. He exuded the same sort of vibe as the figure making their way towards the group did, and as they got within striking distance, Marco gave them a small smile. “I thought you were out of town, Ymir,” he said.

She stopped short of the ringleader, her head tilted back with the arch of an arrogant horse, and she fixed Marco with a snake-like gaze. Where his freckles made him seem younger and more innocent, Ymir’s somehow made her sharper. They were like battlescars more than simple marks on skin, and Marco still drew away from her looks at times. But then she smirked. “I was, but I’m back for good. Aren’t you lucky, I can save your sorry arse from the kicking you so often get dealt.”

“Hang on,” the blonde said, loosening his grip on Marco for an instant. “You’re Ymir? _The_ Ymir?”

A dark eyebrow arched up. “Am I a fuckin’ legend now? Honestly, you date a gang leader’s daughter and kill a _few_ motherfucking bigots and all the world goes to shit.” She gave Marco a pained look. “Can’t the cops just let that go?”

“Five years isn’t that long ago, Ymir.”

“Ah, bollocks to ‘em.”

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are,” the ringleader snarled, “but I’m not scared of a fucking female leprechaun talking like a gangster.”

Ymir froze. Marco’s eyes widened. _Oh shit no._

“Did you jus’ call me Irish?” she asked, her look darkening as she stood there. The ringleader’s complexion paled. It was like the plug had been pulled in his cheeks, and suddenly he was stood there colourless. She walked towards him with the carefully swaying motions that made her seem so predatory to Marco, and then a hand had shot out, curling around the ringleader’s collar and dragging him to her. She looked at him with a heavy, lidded expression. “I _said_ , did you just call me fucking Irish?”

The ringleader didn’t respond. Marco let out a breath of a sigh. _Wrong answer._

Ymir tilted her head, regarding him for a moment, and then her face split into a feline grin. “I ain’t Irish, you little shit. I’m fucking Scottish.”

And then came the headbutt.

Marco took the opportunity, whilst the blonde was distracted by his leader’s yelp, to land a knee straight into his lower stomach, giving him another dazing punch around the side of his head. He stepped over his assailant’s prone body and rushed to help Ymir. He needn’t have bothered. “You could have shown up earlier!” he said, dodging a blind hit the leader threw his way.

“Oh, I’m fucking sorry, Twinkle, I didn’t know I was your resident babysitter!” Ymir shot back as she sent the still dizzy guy sprawling. “There anymore of ‘em?”

Marco looked about him. The teenagers were nowhere to be seen, and the blonde was backing away with wide eyes and blood dripping down a cut on his head. “No,” he replied. “All gone.”

“Alright then.” She massaged her knuckles with a sneer, and turned back to the ringleader, who was sprawled on the floor blinking away the pain that was surely clouding his vision. His lank hair was in his face now, clotting in the blood of his broken nose. “You know, muggers had so much more class years ago. They at least had the gall to know when they were beat.” She stood over the guy’s body, feet planted either side of him, and hissed, “You or your boys raise a hand to my friend again and they’ll be dragging you out the river. Do I make myself fucking clear?” She got a hesitant nod in reply. “Good.” She stepped away with an almost-too-bright smile and glanced over to Marco. “Better see to the poor kid they were knocking around the pavement, Twinkle. S’probably lost half his brain by now.”

Marco blinked. _Oh yeah. Right. The guy who’d got him into this position in the first place._ He wandered over to the guy, who was still backing himself against the wall like he wanted to phase through it. He flinched when Marco got closer. “Jesus,” he squeaked. “T-thanks man, you annihilated them.”

Marco smiled. “Thanks, but I’m pretty sure my friend did all the hard work. I just do the stupid things.” He got a small chuckle out of that.

He was a small guy, older than Marco had first thought, with perpetually large eyes and a buzzcut that looked like it was in need of shaving. The bag he had clutched desperately to his chest was large and full to bursting. “I just got off the train,” the guy explained, and Marco instantly felt a crushing amount of sympathy for him. “I was walking back to my apartment when they…”

“Could’ve picked a better street,” Ymir said. “This one’s dodgy as shit.”

“W-well I know that _now,_ ” the guy said wretchedly, “but I haven’t been living here long and…”

“It’s alright,” Marco said, hoping that his calm tone was somewhat soothing. “I don’t live that far away. Why don’t you come over for a little bit and have some tea for the sho-”

“Fucking Scottish bitch!” the ringleader interjected, picking up the last remains of dignity as he lay on the street behind them. He had managed to roll onto his side, and was trying to crack his nose back into place. Ymir’s sneer had been turning into a more genuine smile, but the remark sent all friendliness scuttling away to the shadows.

Marco cringed. “Oh, you really shouldn’t have done that,” he said sadly.

Ymir turned back to the fallen thug, her expression clear in the way his contorted into one of utter horror. She strode back to him, brows furrowing slightly as she nudged him back onto his back with a foot. “Y’know, mate, I hate that word. So degrading. So lazy. There are so many other colourful words to call me.” She was standing over him again, head cocked to the side. “You think you’re a big fuckin’ man, dontcha? Picking fights with girls and thinking they’ll go crying to their daddies. But you ain’t picking a fight with a wee girly, sunshine. You’re picking a fight with _me_.” And with that, she brought the heel of her boot down on his groin. Hard. Once. Twice. Three times. Marco winced at each impact, drawing away at every scream and feeling a degree of sympathy.

“She’s crazy,” Buzzcut whimpered.

Ymir managed to hear him. “Angry, yes,” she replied, bringing her boot down again. “Troubled, eh maybe.” And again. “But _never_ crazy.” Again.

Buzzcut looked imploringly at Marco. “Can’t you stop her?”

Marco gave him a pained smile. “Does it look like she’d listen?”

“Fair point,” Buzzcut mumbled, sliding back down the wall and trying to ignore the howls of pain coming from the unfortunate thug.

Ymir finally stopped after the eighth stomp and spat on the ground beside the sobbing, twitching body. “I hope your dick turns fucking purple, you sack of shit bastard,” she hissed, giving him a parting kick in the ribs for good measure. Only then did she turn around and smile. “Anyway, where were we before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yes!” Before Marco could move, she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. “Ya little shit, how you been keeping?” she cawed, only squeezing him tighter when he didn’t respond.

“I’ve been f-fine,” he managed to say through all the air being constricted from him. “W-was stomping on the guy’s dick necessary?”

“Hey, that’s the closest I’ll ever get to a fucking dick, I gave it what it deserved. Besides, he called me a bitch. Couldn’t stand for that. You know I hate that word.” Ymir said it like it was an obvious connection.

Marco frowned. “I call you a bitch sometimes, though.”

“It’s a term of endearment when you say it, your dick is safe.”

“I’m so glad.” Marco gave her a playful shove as she untangled herself from him.  He and Ymir went way back, farther back than Marco tended to think, and though they had gotten off on a slightly awkward foot, Ymir was like a sister to him. Or at least a very strange, slightly threatening cousin. Marco knew her well enough by now, however, to know that he would forever be safe from her wrath. “And there was me thinking you were getting sensitive in your old age.”

“I’m not even fucking thirty yet, Jesus Christ Bodt! Gimme a break.”

Marco smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t go all sappy on me,” she said, ruffling his hair playfully as she hoisted Buzzcut to his full height (to the poor guy’s horror). “You’re losing your touch. Taking on four muggers and needing help?”

“Oh, shove off.” Marco snorted. “That punch of theirs is going to leave a mark, though.”

“I always said purple suited you.”

Marco gave her a push.

“W-who are you?” Buzzcut asked then.

“I’m Ymir,” she said, “Just Ymir. Like Prince. Or Cher.” She winked. “Don’t worry short-arse, I ain’t gonna stomp on your dick either.”

“She’s a little rough around the edges,” Marco added to stop the poor guy from fleeing the first chance he got, “but she means well. Honest.”

“Didn’t she say she killed a guy?”

Ymir pouted at Marco. “Must I always be remembered for my mistakes?”

Marco rolled his eyes and offered Buzzcut a smile. “It’s a long story. What’s your name?”

“Connie,” Buzzcut replied, shouldering his bag as they all set off along the stretch of dark street, “Connie Springer.”

“Nice to meet you Connie Springer, but like I said before, you shouldn’t be walking down such dark alleyways,” Ymir said, casting feigned-casual looks around her. “Could be nasties out to bite.” Marco knew that she was on edge; he could tell by the way her nails were cutting into her palm as she walked, and her brow twitched every so often. She had good reason to be; this was her old stomping ground, true enough, but that meant that there were people here who knew her, and according to Ymir she wanted to avoid said people as much as possible. She didn’t want to clear her name, exactly, but she at least wanted it dry-cleaned.

Despite the fact that Marco and Ymir were capable of looking after themselves, the little group stayed close together, and Marco kept his eyes on every dark corner, every lurking shadow or shift of noise. _Ymir’s right_ , he thought, _you’re putting yourself in too much danger. You’re punching above your weight, and if she wasn’t there to stop them…_ He shuddered. Couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t.

They reached the old warehouse that housed Marco’s apartment, and Connie squinted up at them. “You live here?” he asked.

Marco nodded, putting a hand in his pocket as he glanced up at the topmost window. “Yup, this is me.”

“But I live here.”

“No shit,” Ymir crowed, giving Connie a sharp elbow in the ribs. “Lookit you, neighbourly friends, it was meant to fuckin’ be.”

Marco chuckled. “Alright, alright, you coming in or not?” The unasked question hung in the air between them. The question that begged whether or not Ymir even _had_ somewhere to stay. The little tattoo place she used to work at tended to be her usual haunt, but even that shut up shop late at night.

She gave a loose shrug, and Marco knew the answer. “Could crash at yours, if you’d have me,” she said.

“Of course I would,” Marco tutted, trotting up to the main door and brandishing his keys, “you know that you don’t have to ask.”

“Hey, I’m the one who owes you, not the other way around,” Ymir pointed out as she stepped in close to leech off of the already escaping heat.

Despite the fact that Connie seemed a little more nervous now he knew that Ymir was going to be joining them, he still accepted Marco’s invitation of tea and a bit of a rest, and as they began to climb the stairs with collective huffs and grunts, he became a little more talkative. He began to tell Marco how he was a final year student at the University who entered late and as a result was working with people three years his junior. “Sucks,” he said as they climbed, “seeing as I feel like I should be out teaching them instead of working with them.” He was, apparently, studying for a degree in Biochemistry (when Marco looked at him in slight awe, Connie laughed and said that he was just as surprised as Marco was) and lived on the floor down from them. Once he saw that Marco was heading up to the topmost apartment he became very impressed very quickly. “You live all the way up _here?”_ he gaped.

“Don’t get like that,” Marco said hurriedly as he went to open his door, “it’s probably ten times worse up here than it is on the bottom floor!”

“Doesn’t matter man, you got all that space!”

The moment he opened the door he was set upon by a concerned Sasha. Or, rather, he got a bash around the back of his head and an enraged squawk of, “Where HAVE you **_been_**?” from her.

“Ow, Sash! Lay off!” Marco whined, ducking out of range of another hit. “I’ve already been hit about tonight…”

“You didn’t go picking fights with thugs _again,_ did you?” Sasha groaned. “I thought you’d gotten past that!”

“I have!” he shot back. He thrust a thumb in Ymir and Connie’s direction. “Ymir’s back from her travels,” he said, scooting over to the kitchen area to boil the kettle. He saw that Batman was stretched out to his full length on the little island in the centre, his claws tickling the already scarred table top, and when Marco reached out to stroke him the cat arched up into his touch, a pleased purr rumbling forth from his throat. Marco smiled absently as he got the tea things sorted, then turned back to the group. Sasha was in an animated discussion with Ymir about something, and Connie was stood on the sidelines peering at them as if they were going to explode. He chuckled. “Don’t worry, they’re harmless. Well, Sasha is.”

Connie jumped at Marco’s voice, but gave a shaky laugh and rubbed the back of his neck as he wandered over to him. “That woman… Ymir? She’s a bit…”

Marco nodded, turning to pour the water into the cups. “I know,” he said, “she’s a bit intimidating. But like I said, she’s alright once you get to know her. We got into a fight the first time we met, so I wouldn’t let first impressions put you off. We’re thick as thieves now, right Ymir?”

“I’d do anything for the fucking goon,” Ymir agreed heartily. “Us frecklies stick together.”

Connie blinked at her. “Everything that guy said… that was true?”

Marco sighed. It was difficult to explain, and it definitely wasn’t something he wanted to get into with a near- stranger after saving him from a mugging. Marco didn’t even know _all_ of it. “It was a long time ago,” he decided on. “Ymir still has the reputation, but not so much the sheer, blazing anger.”

Ymir was watching him now, he could feel her gaze burning into his shoulder as he shovelled in spoonful after spoonful of sugar for Connie. He was backing off. He wouldn’t betray her confidence. And when he turned back to hand Connie the sickly concoction, he gave her a small, apologetic smile. Ymir gave a hint of one in return.

Only then did Sasha seem to notice that the other person standing in their apartment wasn’t a usual visitor. “Who’s this?” she asked, sidling her way towards him.

Marco smiled. “Sasha, this is Connie. Connie, Sasha.”

Now came the moment of truth. Marco waited for the usual routine of things. Usually the eyes would fall onto the belly, only just beginning to show underneath the floral top she was wearing, and the awkward questions would arise. The ‘when’s the big day’ or ‘are you two married’- Marco had heard them all, and Sasha more than once. Every remark seemed to eat further into her confidence, but here she was stood in front of Connie, waiting for the inevitable question to fall like an axe.

It didn’t come. “It’s nice to meet you,” Connie said, nodding politely as he gave her a large, genuine smile that was for her face and her face alone. “I’d say sorry for barging in, but if I hadn’t it would probably mean I was still being robbed of my worldly possessions.”

“Rookie error, running around with everything vital in a bag,” Ymir tutted, dropping down onto the sofa with a huff and hooking one leg over the other. “You’re like a thug’s wet dream, Springer.”

“I came from the station!” Connie huffed. His fear of Ymir was quickly dissipating, Marco noted, and it was good to see. “Who the hell was I supposed to know?”

“You just have to, baldy.” Ymir reclined back into the soft cushions with a groan of relief, and Batman abandoned his place by Marco to leap onto her lap and demand attention with a batting of a single paw on her chin. “It’ll only be tonight, Marco,” she added as she picked up the cat and cradled it to her chest, and Marco immediately knew what she was talking about. “Only tonight. I promise.”

“I always say you can stay however long you like.” Marco pressed a coffee into her waiting hand, whilst the other succumbed to Batman’s indignant meows as she began to scratch him behind the ear.

That was the thing with Ymir; she never stayed long in one place. She only stayed at Marco’s for a night or so at a time, and then she would vanish into the ether of the city and pop up again at the most opportune moment. She would get her job at the tattoo parlour back- she always did, after returning from monthly wanderings- but finding a room cheap enough to rent was another story. But she wouldn’t take help, and she wouldn’t take a sofa, no matter how pushy he was. Marco wasn’t sure whether it was because she didn’t like to impose on anyone, or if it was genuinely due to the fact that she was flighty. Ymir liked being on her own, and Marco respected that. Just because he preferred to have others around to distract him didn’t mean everyone else was the same. Ymir was far happier on her own. It was how she felt safe.

Marco wasn’t sure he even knew how that felt anymore.

And then, with a jolt, the sound of his alarm went off. _Oh well_ , he thought, tipping the rainbow of pills into his hand and reaching for a glass of water, _even being surrounded by people can’t make you escape the fact that you need to rattle like a chemist’s every twenty four hours._

* * *

He was still awake hours later. He lost track of the time in the kitchen, as Connie slowly warmed under the bubbling laughter of Sasha and the crude humour of Ymir, and they spent the majority of the night sat in the main living space of the apartment. It had felt like University, just for a moment; that self-same giddy feeling of meeting new people surrounded Marco, just like it had when he had bundled into his Fresher’s dorm so many years ago. They sprawled about on the floor, on the sofa, on the windowsill, all talking and laughing and feeling more comfortable than they ever had with strangers before, and Marco was grateful. There was this sort of warmth that took over him when he was with people; it cushioned him and made the outside blows seem a little less heavy, and let his tense muscles relax, if only for a few hours.

But then, once he’d gone to bed, it hadn’t taken long for those lovely little ‘side effects’ to kick in. Marco was forced to bolt upright and charge for the bathroom an hour after Connie had gone, and knelt groaning against the side of the toilet as his stomach clenched nastily at the intrusion to its system. His body was wracked with shivers, every movement a chore, and he didn’t feel ready to open his eyes yet. Instead, he kept them tightly shut and pressed his forehead into the cold porcelain so firmly it began to hurt. This had to stop. Had to be something they could do. The side effects weren’t worth it. Were they worth it? Okay, maybe they were…

He peeled his head away from the toilet and blinked slowly, the world spinning in an array of colour in front of his eyes. He always worried that he would bring the pills back up, that they wouldn't have absorbed quickly enough, but every time his doctor said that it was the best thing on the market for someone ‘of his condition’. “ _You’re young,”_ they would say, “ _you can fight those effects. You’ve got a better chance than someone older.”_ Maybe someone older would have died already, Marco thought coldly as he ran a hand back through his hair. He didn’t _want_ to die, but sometimes… just sometimes… he thought it would be so much easier to just give up.

He shook himself clear of those morbid thoughts, and let another thousand assault his tender stomach. _What if someone heard? What if Ymir heard?_ The large guttural snoring he could vaguely hear coming from the living room suggested she wouldn’t.

He sighed and slumped his shoulders forward, his body still shaking in the aftershocks of his impressive twenty minute bout of retching (he and Sasha should get a contest set up one day) and he flushed the cistern with a weak flail in its direction. His head had fallen onto the side of the toilet again, and he’d been debating on just falling asleep there in case his body decided to betray him in further charming ways, when he felt something vibrating in his trouser pocket. He always wore tracksuit bottoms to bed, mainly because he suffered from bouts of hot and cold spells (another wonderful side effect) and he’d forgotten that his phone was stuffed in there. He brought it out with a grimace, wondering who else would be up at this godforsaken hour, and then he saw the caller ID. “Eren?” he asked as he picked up.

“No, it’s Pinocchio.”

“What’re you doing calling me so late?” Marco blinked, swaying slightly with the effort of sitting up.

“I’m almost at your place,” Eren said. He sounded a lot more serious than usual, and that creased the space between Marco’s brows. “Can you come out onto the balcony?”

“Are you going to use the fire escape again?”

There was a sheepish bout of silence. “Maybe.”

“I’m coming out, hold on.”

Hanging up was a doddle. Getting up and shuffling to his room to pull on a shirt and a hoodie was less of one, especially when he got up so fast he got a headrush. He stumbled into his room and grabbed the first items of clothing he could find, including a jacket for Eren because he never had enough layers, and wobbled out into the main room. Ymir was still out cold, one leg hooked over the back of the sofa and the other dangling to the floor, but Marco kept his footfall quiet. He knew better than to wake her.

He had to persuade the large window to open with a few tentative shakes of the frame, but with a creak it did as it was told and swung out into the world below. He stepped out into the night air gingerly, wrapping his arms around himself as the drop in temperature hit him like a punch, and shut the window securely behind him as he took a few small steps out onto the balcony. It wasn’t much of a balcony at all; it was comprised mainly of ironwork and steel flooring- it was used more as an emergency exit than anything else. Marco could see Eren coming; he was sporting a vibrantly pink shirt that was capable of stopping traffic as he climbed the beaten down old metal stairs. Some of the steps had holes in them and others were missing altogether, but Eren didn’t seem to care. Marco watched his progress for a little while, his hear leaping into his throat with every stumble or curse Eren made. He tried to block out the noise of the city breathing down below him, but found it hard. He leant on the bar a fraction and noticed the way it gave just a little, but bore his weight with relentless patience. And then, Eren was coming to him.

Marco knew why he’d been attracted to Eren at university. He had sauntered straight into Marco’s life like he belonged there, and Marco couldn’t have been more confused about that. Still, nothing much had changed; all the things Eren had back then remained there now, and Marco still felt that warmth encase him when he was around.

The violently pink top was screaming out some sort of slogan that Marco was pretty sure Eren was wearing ironically, and it hung down low enough to expose his collarbones that were pimpled with the cold. That was something he tried not to notice, but couldn’t help. Marco saw the beauty in everything, but when he looked at Eren climbing over the imposing bars to reach him, he didn’t have to look far.

“Hey.” He didn’t move from his spot as Eren righted himself, all huffs and pants and annoyance, and gave him a small smile. It felt diluted from all the throwing up, but Eren didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to- but he _could_ know. Marco could tell him. He could tell him right then, at that moment in time, when he was standing on his balcony and getting his breath back. It was possible, and that was what was frightening for him. It was all too possible. All he had to do was open his mouth and-

“I had a bad day.”

_Oh. Maybe another time_.

Marco frowned and pushed off the railing to face Eren. He was stood in the centre of the balcony glaring at some far-off point in the distance, like the entire world was responsible for his mood. But something was different. The confidence was gone. Eren was clasping his elbows tight against his chest like he was scared he would shatter if he let go, his nails biting into the skin and leaving angry red marks in their place. He was managing to make himself look so small, so meek, and that was what got Marco’s attention. Eren never looked small.

“Eren, what happened?” he asked. There was no need for niceties between them- they were past that. Marco didn’t sugar-coat his questions to Eren, not ever, and Eren was the same. It was the way they were.

Eren kept his eyes fixed on the single point, shifting so that only his teal eye was exposed. “Have you ever thought about what we’re doing here, Marco?” he asked. “What the point is?”

Marco slumped. Ah. It was one of _those_ crises. Eren rushing to his apartment to talk about the bigger picture wasn’t exactly common, but Marco didn’t put it past him. There was something else, he could tell by the way Eren was avoiding his gaze and refusing to throw in backhanded pieces of humour. He decided to humour him- after all, he wasn’t going to be sleeping for a while, and he figured he deserved the company. “Of course I have,” he said.

“What do you think?” Eren’s gaze was still elsewhere.

Marco paused. It was a big question to think about so late at night. “I guess I think that there’s a reason for everything. We all follow a particular path, and it’s not always a nicely paved one.”

Eren snorted bitterly. “That’s fucking stupid. How can you think such bullshit, after what happened to you?” Marco flinched- visibly flinched- and Eren ducked his head against his chest. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was a shitty thing to say.”

Marco said nothing. It was true, but he wasn’t going to call Eren out on it- it wasn’t worth it. The cold blew through Marco like he was hollow, and Eren fared no better. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket, and his jeans looked like they were on their last legs too, with rips and scuffs in every spare scrap of denim. He shook his head when Marco wordlessly offered him the jacket he’d brought out, even though he was shivering badly. It was like he felt he didn’t deserve it.

“Eren,” Marco tried again, “what happened?”

It took him a moment to respond. “I saw Reiner today.”

Marco’s mood darkened. _Oh. Reiner._ “Did he talk to you?”

Eren shook his head. “He walked straight on past me. Like I was invisible. Like I didn’t matter, like the last… fuck knows how many years of us being friends meant nothing to him.” He gave the metal bars of the balcony a kick and spun on his heel, beginning to pace the length of the balcony whilst Marco watched him. Reiner had been a friend of theirs from university- he and Eren had dated for a while, but it hadn’t lasted. Unfortunately, though, that was around the time that Eren started to use, and it seemed to coincide with his relationship with Reiner a little too conveniently…

As a result, Marco didn’t trust Reiner Braun as far as he could throw him.

Which wasn’t far, the man was built like a tank.

Shaking those thoughts free, Marco shuffled a little closer. “You don’t need him,” he assured Eren, reaching out and patting him on the shoulder with as much care as he could afford. The shoulder he clapped onto felt far too cold for living flesh, and he frowned. Eren beating himself up over something like not being recognised by an old friend was going to give him a cold. “You’ve got Mikasa, and me, and loads of other people. Reiner’s not worth your time, if all he was interested in was a drug partner.”

Eren sniffed. “You know it was more than that.” He bunched his shoulders up to his ears and seethed through his teeth. “Jesus fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a decent hit right about now.”

Marco gave him a gentle push. “Don’t joke about that, Eren! You’re doing so well. I’m proud of you.”

Eren gave a small smile, but it fell off his face quickly enough. “Marco…”

“Mmm?”

Eren was silent. Marco let him take his time; whatever it was, Eren clearly needed to think it through. Police sirens fired through the model Trost below them noisily, the cars surrounding them trundling along like beetles through bark. The city lights were blinking like the eyes of giants, replacing the natural light that had filtered through the nooks and crannies of each little street during the daytime hours and Marco remembered how the dark made him feel.

“I think I’m getting sick,” Eren said eventually. Marco turned to look at him, and saw the way a muscle twitched in his jaw.

He felt a jolt at his navel at the word. “P-people get sick all the time, Eren,” he replied, trying to calm his already racing pulse, “You’re not some kind of invincible guy who doesn’t get ill. Don’t be a drama queen, you’ll be alright.”

“S’not that kind of sick.” Eren pushed away from the spot he’d been leaning against and met Marco’s eyes. His jaw was clenched from holding something back, and his eyes were darting about a little worriedly. “Feels different. I’m breaking out in sweats, Marco. _All the time._ I don’t think that’s normal. My temperature’s going up and down like a fucking yoyo and I just…” A shudder rippled through him, and he seemed to draw in on himself like he was trying to escape it. “I just think I’m getting sick.” Marco stared at him. He couldn’t respond. Something was stuck in his throat, and he didn’t want to cough it out for fear of what it was. “I mean, it could be because I’m going off the drugs cold turkey, right? People react differently to withdrawal, don’t they? I’m sure lots of people break out in sweats, or get feverish, or…” His voice trailed off, and he gave a painful swallow as he looked back onto the street below them. He didn’t need to say anymore. Marco knew why he was worried.

Still, it didn’t stop the way he felt something freeze in the pit of his stomach, or the way he became instantly cold. _No,_ his mind said blankly, as though it couldn’t compute with what it was hearing. _No no no no no._ He took a step closer. Tried to breathe.

_It’s nothing, it’s nothing, he’ll be okay, it’s nothing._

“Put the jacket on,” he said, holding it out to him.

Eren shook his head. “I’m too warm. I’m fucking burning, Marco. I’m _burning._ Can’t you see how that’s a problem right now?” He shook his head, glancing away for a fraction of a second before replying, “Look, I… I don’t know what to do.” He looked to Marco. “Tell me what to do.”

Marco was a little taken aback. Eren Jaeger, the guy who never asked anyone’s opinion of anything because his was the only one that mattered, was asking him what to do. His stomach churned at the thought. He wetted his lips and took a step closer. “First of all,” he said, “please, for the love of God, put the jacket on. Catching your death out here isn’t going to make you feel any better. I don’t care if you say you’re warm, your skin says otherwise.” Eren looked like he was going to argue, but the look on Marco’s face was enough to make him roll his eyes and begrudgingly accept the thick hoodie. It got halfway down his legs and the sleeves were far too big, but it did the job. Marco sighed, and said the words he really hadn’t wanted to say. “I think you should go to the clinic, Eren,” he said.

Eren’s eyes grew large. “You don’t think…?”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry.” Marco tried to lighten his words with a shrug. “You should have been going regularly anyway. You were sleeping with god knows who, god knows where. You have to be careful.”

Eren huffed. “I don’t like doctors,” he muttered.

“Go to the clinic,” Marco pressed. Eren drew the hoodie tighter around himself, and tried to avoid Marco’s gaze. He failed. “Please, Eren. Do it. For me?”

Eren leaned forward on the railing, looking down at the cars and the trees and the people, and drew in a sigh. Marco watched him intently, noting every grimace, every tick, every blink that seemed out of place. _He will be okay_ , his brain reminded him. _He’ll be fine. Don’t jump to conclusions._

He didn’t quite remember how his hand got to trailing through the shorter part of Eren’s hair at the back of his neck, nor did he remember shuffling still closer, but a few minutes later there he was. But Eren was smiling at the touch, tilting his head up with a noise akin to a purr coming from his throat. Eren was sensitive around his neck. Every touch to it would send tingles firing through his body, and after admitting it to Marco one night when they were both very drunk, Marco tended to use it to his advantage when they were together. It was enough to see Eren smile a little, anyway.

“I’ll go,” Eren sighed. “I promise.”

“Good.” Marco drew his hand away, earning a whine of deprivation from Eren, and gave him a smile. “You better go before the weekend though- now Ymir’s back in town I’m gonna get an appointment sorted. You need to figure out what you want.”

“What I want?” Eren blinked. “You’re the masochistic fucker who’s having at it with a needle.”

“Like you’re the one to talk.”

“Below the belt, Bodt.”

Marco laughed. “Seriously,” he said, nudging him with his hip, “what should I have?”

Eren grinned, and for that moment all talks of clinics and doctors were forgotten. “Did you have any ideas at all?”

“Well,” Marco said, “I have one. What about a bat?”

Eren snorted. “What kind of sucky animal is that?”

“Well, you’re a lot like a bat,” was Marco’s reply.

He chuckled at the way Eren’s nose scrunched up. “What do you mean, like I sleep upside down? Cus I swear that only happens when I drink too much.”

“No, no,” Marco chuckled. “I mean that they’re misunderstood. People are wary of them, they’re scared of them sometimes, but in reality…” he grinned, “they’re just little balls of fluff.”

Eren hesitated. “See, usually I would tell you to fuck off, but I think you might have something there.”

“Told you.”

“So long as it’s a badass looking bat, no cartoon-y shit. I want something that looks tribal and patterned, like the one you have for Mikasa.”

Marco laughed. He looked back out on the city, the less than elegant snoring of Ymir puncturing the usual traffic of the night. “I’ll see what I can do.” He pretended not to notice the way Eren’s head tilted onto his shoulder, a heavy sigh coming from his friend’s throat, and also ignored the painful squirming in the pit of his stomach that heralded the worry of things to come.

* * *

The bruises came to the surface by the morning. Marco cringed when he looked at them in the mirror, the site just under his cheekbone purpling by the hour from the force of the punch, but there was little he could do. Bruises just had to sort themselves out, and he didn’t exactly have the money to squander on some kind of ointment to stop them looking quite so horrific. He thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t sustained a black eye; that was the usual menu on the ‘Marco-Bodt-injury-list’, and was one that was always met with looks of horror and disgust. There was another nasty looking bruise on his jaw, and a cut to his lip he didn’t even remember getting, but all he could do was sigh and dab some sort of antiseptic into his lip before leaving for work.

Marlow hadn’t been happy to see him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, walking in here with a face like that?” he demanded as Marco shuffled in, trying to hide the majority of his injuries under his scarf.

“Working?” he tried.

“If you have to be in today you’re not seeing to customers, you’ll scare ‘em all off.” Marlow squinted at him. “What have you been up to, Marco?”

“It’s nothing.” He brushed past his friend and drew his project of the week towards him. “It’ll heal.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s something you want to come in bearing like calling cards every month.” Marlow sighed, and patted Marco’s shoulder soothingly. “Take it easy, alright? Don’t go running after people who can do this sort of stuff.”

It was preaching to the unconvertible, Marco wanted to say, but he ended up nodding and picking up a screwdriver. That was all Marlow had to say on the matter, though Marco caught him glancing over a few times and wincing when he thought Marco wasn’t looking.

Marco didn’t think of much until lunchtime rolled around and the sign was turned, and then he remembered. He was meeting Jean. “Going to see your freaky little friend, are you?” Marlow said when Marco hopped over the desk.

“You’re just jealous because there’s no excuse for Mikasa to stop by now,” Marco called over his shoulder, his passing remark as he shut the door of the shop and wandered out into the slightly chillier outdoors. He laughed as he heard the angry spluttering of Marlow moments later.

Jean was waiting for him at the coffee shop again, though this time he was sat at one of the tables reading the book Marco had given him from the shop the day before, brows furrowed in concentration as his coffee steamed beside him. The beanie was still crammed on his head, but there was the hint of stubble peppering his jaw from where he’d either forgotten to shave that morning or hadn’t the time, and Marco couldn’t help thinking that it suited him. It matched those eyes of his. He took a deep breath, and started walking towards him. “Hi,” he greeted as he reached him.

This time, Jean wasn’t caught by surprise. He looked up, his eyes meeting Marco’s, and he frowned. “What happened to your face?” was the first thing out of his mouth.

Marco blinked. Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten. He realised he could lie, or just brush him off completely. But he had the overwhelming urge to be honest, and as Jean stared him down it was all he could do. “I, uh, got into a fight last night,” he said. “It’s nothing bad, though.”

“A fight?” Jean’s frown deepened. “What did you go and do that for?” His accent meant that half the sentence came out as ‘wotcha’.

“I don’t think you’d approve if I told you,” Marco replied, sitting down opposite him with a smile.

“Probably not.” Jean’s eyes flicked over his face, noting every blemish and bruise, and Marco felt the need to shuffle under the intensity. Jean put his book down with care and leant across the table, and before Marco knew it his face was being touched. He tensed.

“Looks pretty tender. Must’ve sustained quite a bit of trauma for how purple it is,” Jean observed, his fingers tracing the edge of each bruise like they had minds of their own. Marco swallowed painfully, but allowed him to carry on despite the fact his brain was screaming at him to jerk away.

Jean’s hands were a little rough, painter’s hands that hadn’t seen a day without being in use, but there was a gentleness to the way he skimmed over his skin that left him wondering whether Jean was used to seeing such bruises. “Jean…?”

“S’alright,” he muttered, “I trained to be a nurse for a year or so. I know what I’m doing.”

“Y-you did?”

“Mmhmm.” Jean’s brows drew together as he traced the line of Marco’s scar. “You do that, too?”

Marco did jerk away then. He brought a hand up to brush his hair down in front of his eyebrow, covering the scar from view. “No,” he said, “No, it wasn’t from…”

“Well, I sorta guessed. Looks like pretty old scar tissue.” Jean leaned away, not all that phased by the reaction Marco had given him. “You get into fights often?”

Marco sighed, and fixed a plastic smile on his face. “Let’s not talk about it,” he said. When Jean’s look darkened, Marco added a weak, “please?” to the end.

Jean rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever.”

“I didn’t think you’d be the type who’d want to go into nursing,” Marco pointed out.

Jean brought a beaten up old rucksack into view, where he slipped the book inside like he was handling something made of glass. “Why do you say that?” he asked without looking back.

“Well, you don’t really seem to be into the idea of helping people,” Marco replied.

Jean paused. “Well, not _anymore_ , Ponytail, but times change. People change. If you must know, I realised that helping people was a hell of a lot harder than I’d thought.” There was a slight pain in the way he looked down at his bag and avoided Marco’s eye. “Besides, the family weren’t all that keen on it. Thought it was a girly job. Wanted me to be a doctor. Didn’t want to. And, well, you can’t do shit in this world without money.”

Marco chuckled. “Isn’t that the truth?” When Jean continued to avoid his gaze, Marco added, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Jean blinked. “What? Oh, no, it’s nothing, really, I’m just…”

“On edge?”

Jean shrugged.

Marco decided that it was the end of the conversation, and so went inside to get his coffee. Whilst he waited in line, he wondered how on earth someone like Jean had been training to be a nurse. It was true, he thought, people _did_ change, but something like nursing required an inherent thing inside of you, a nurturing instinct that meant you not only wanted to save people’s lives, but you _needed_ to. _Change of career?_ His brain asked, and Marco snorted at the very thought. He would be a _terrible_ nurse, seeing as he was squeamish. He couldn’t really imagine Jean being much better, squeamish or not. Jean was abrasive and sounded like he held little sympathy for people. Jean was isolated and didn’t like the company of people. But Jean’s hands were so gentle… so _caring_ … he had the qualities in him, alright: where had they gone to hide?

Still, Marco thought as he paid for his coffee and sauntered out towards the table, he was one of the people Jean apparently liked having around, and that was good enough for him.

He stopped short when he saw that Jean had company. She spotted him before he could introduce himself, and her eyes flashed wide.

She was a small woman; she would probably only reach Marco’s chest if she stood up, but she was currently seated next to Jean with her scarf thrown off from her neck and bundled in her lap, and had stopped mid-sentence. She was one of those girls that were pretty without even trying, but there was an innocence to her beauty that suggested she wasn’t the type to dwell on it. Her blonde hair was pale and perfect, and curled around her face like it was trying to hug her cheeks, cut in a gentle sweep. It looked like it would be soft to touch. Was this a girlfriend? Marco couldn’t be sure. “Uh, hey,” he said, taking the next few steps towards a chair. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Are you Marco?” she asked. Marco was forced to wonder whether all of Jean’s friends were so blunt.

He blinked. “Uh, yeah, I’m Marco.”

He only had to wait a second more before he was blessed with the sunniest smile he’d ever seen. “I thought it was you! I’ve heard so much about you!”

“You… you have?” Marco glanced at Jean- and registered a look of complete and utter mortification. Jean’s eyes were bulging, his mouth drawn in such a fine line the pink outline of his lips had vanished. His face was quickly turning the colour of a tomato, so much so that Marco started to get a bit alarmed at how bright he was getting, his gaze forever fixed on his friend’s (girlfriend’s?) beaming face like she’d just shot a man. He was even shaking his head ever so slightly, as though begging her to shut up. Marco had to admit that, although he felt a little sorry for Jean, the thought of Jean talking about him to the girl was enough to make him smile. Jean noticed.

“N-no, don’t fuckin’ do that,” he whined.

Marco chuckled. “What?”

“Smile like a dweeb. Stop it.”

“Jean, that’s not nice to say about your friend,” the girl said with a wink, refusing to heed his warning as she stuck out a hand for Marco to shake. “You should have been forewarned. If you give Jean Kirschtein a book, you’re set for life.” Her grip was firmer than Marco expected, perfected over years of having to prove she was more than she seemed he guessed, and he curled his palm to reawaken his fingers as she added, “I’m Christa,” like it was an afterthought. She raised a brow. “And you really _are_ a cute one.”

“I didn’t tell her that!” Jean blurted out in alarm. He seemed resigned to his fate, but when Christa beckoned Marco closer he tensed up like he was being introduced to a murderer. He cleared his throat and shot Marco an apologetic look. “C-can we do this another…?”

Marco stopped short, a frown crossing his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

But then he saw it.

He saw the bundle in Christa’s arms wriggle.

He paused. “Uh…” he began.

Jean looked like someone had shot him.

Christa’s frown deepened as she glanced in his direction. “You mean you _didn’t_ tell him?”

“Christa…” Jean wheezed. It was like he wasn’t breathing.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of-” Her eyes fell back to Marco. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”

Marco looked between them both, beyond confused. “What should he have told me?” he asked blankly.

Christa folded back one of the folds of the bundle in reply.

And there, blinking like they had never seen the sun before, was a baby.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just... put this on again... *places queen of cliffhangers crown back upon head and scampers into the distance*


	5. Diamond Church St Choir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also known as 'daaaang this chapter has a lot of section breaks' I know, I know, I'm sorry. I fail. I just had a lot I wanted to smoosh into this chapter!   
> May also be known as the 'damnit Eren stop stealing the limelight' chapter but you'll see why. Eren is turning out to be important, the little shit.   
> But yessss, I hope you can forgive me for the li'l cliffhanger last update, but I think I got this up relatively quick...work's been kicking my butt right now so I haven't had the change to write as much as I used to. STILL. Money is good and all that bosh...  
> So we see more of Jean being and awkward, adorable dork, Marlow getting uncomfortable and Eren throwing an internal temper tantrum all in the name of drama. Hold onto your butts. I think I have to add a tag about Eren to the fic description cus the little shit ain't doing as he's told...
> 
> Thank you so much for all your feedback, I really do appreciate it! :D
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> My tumblr is here: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

Marco wasn’t easily surprised. He was used to a lot of things happening in his life that were out of the usual, or slightly off kilter, but for some reason he was stopped flat. He didn’t mean to look so stunned. He just couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed the baby, squirming around in Christa’s arms like it was trying to break free of her grip. Life could have been stuck in a freeze frame at that moment, with Marco staring at the baby like it had grown a third limb, Christa staring at him and Jean looking fainter and fainter by the minute, if it wasn’t for the determined wriggling of the tiniest person there. It took Marco a minute. And then, he smiled.

“Well, hey there,” he cooed, leaning down to take a closer look. “And who are you, little one?”

Christa seemed to take a breath. Had she been holding it in? “This is-”

“Claudine.” Jean’s voice surprised Marco. He focused back on the other man, and saw how Jean was drawing into himself the longer he stared at the baby. He’d never seen someone look so terrified about having a baby around in his life. “Her name is Claudine,” he repeated, weak and small.

“Claudine,” Marco repeated. He looked down at her again, mainly to save Jean from talking- it seemed like it was quite an effort for him. “She’s a cute one.”

Jean looked ill. He was fast becoming the colour of milk, and his eyes were wide with the traces of fear at their edges. He was refusing to meet either of their gazes, and when Marco managed to catch his eye Jean just twitched like he’d been shot at and firmly glared at a spot on the table. He did nothing. He just muttered something gruffly under his breath and ruffled a hand through his hair. Marco tried not to be concerned. He tried so hard.

_It doesn’t matter,_ he reminded himself. _Doesn’t matter at all, stop caring._

“Is she yours?” he asked Christa, trying to ignore the way Jean was behaving.

“Oh, no,” Christa said, shaking her head. She seemed glad that Marco was trying to break into conversation; being Jean’s friend was clearly harder than it looked. “I just… I look after her sometimes.”

“Then who’s-”

“She’s my sister’s,” Jean cut in. Both Christa and Marco turned to him at that. He was staring at the baby in Christa’s arms, but the look on his face suggested that he wasn’t actually _seeing_ her. Still, he beckoned to Christa to hand Claudine over, and she did with a questioning frown. Jean drew the baby into his chest like she was merely an extension of himself, and all the tension crackling along his shoulders lessened- just a bit. He cradled her head in the crook of his elbow and her entire body slotted in the space between his arm and chest. Claudine’s wriggling stopped as she adjusted to her new position, and Marco couldn’t help but smile. “Your sister’s?” he asked. “Are you looking after her for a while, then?”

“Something like that,” Jean said without looking up. He sounded a million miles away. “M’not exactly sure how long I’m meant to be looking after her…”

“Jean,” Christa sighed, “have you still not managed to contact her?” Jean just shrugged a response. “Ugh, you’re hopeless.” She slumped back in her seat and glowered at him. _Wow,_ Marco thought. _She even makes glaring pretty._ Jean, however, didn’t even flinch. She looked to Marco, as if he would be a voice of logic. “Jean’s been looking after Claudine since she was a month old, and nothing from his sister. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.”

“Think we’ve established that I’ve heard nowt from my sister, so can we drop it now?” Jean hissed.

Marco took him up on the offer of a subject change. “How old is she?” He decided to sit down, taking a sip of coffee as he did so. He figured he was allowed to sit down by now, and the standing around was starting to get him tired. _Side effects, side effects, stupid bloody side effects._

“Three months. In a few days’ time,” Jean said. He still hadn’t looked at him, not properly anyway. Claudine, however, was unashamedly staring at Marco like all infants did. She stared like he was an alien, her eyes large and hazel, and the more she stared the more determined she seemed to reach him. She fought to free a single hand from her blankets, her face scrunching up in effort, and when Jean clucked gently at her she wriggled all the more in rebellion. Marco chuckled. “She’s boisterous, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea,” Jean said. He sounded tired. “She never settles. Never sleeps through the night.” He sighed again and tucked her close to his chest. “It’s like she knows she shouldn’t be here. It’s like she knows how hopeless I am.”

“You’re doing fine, Jean,” Christa said, laying a small hand on his arm. “You really are. You didn’t exactly plan for this.”

Jean didn’t look like he believed her.

It suddenly struck Marco, as he sat there watching Jean with Claudine, why Jean always rushed off whenever they met, or seemed on edge. Did he leave Claudine with Christa, and had to flee at the slightest bit of news from her? Or worse, did he leave Claudine alone in his house when he ventured out? He wasn’t sure, but he hoped it was the former instead of the latter.

For the first time, Jean lifted his head to meet Marco’s gaze. Somehow, he looked so childlike and anxious in his stare, even when he had a baby burrowing into his chest. He looked more than that- he looked _lost_ , like he was a dog at the pound abandoned by its owner. He looked beaten down and resigned to whatever life was going to throw at him next, but there was also a yearning there for something else. He looked like he was pleading. It wasn’t a comfortable look. Marco wanted, not for the first time, to reach out to him. But there was no river beneath them now, or blaring bus on the street. There was no reason to warrant Marco’s urge to reach out his hand and hold on tight. That was different. That was wrong. He swallowed. He cupped a hand around his mug.

“I had no idea you were looking after a baby, Jean,” he said, trying to keep things casual despite how breathless he was becoming.

“I knew Jean hadn’t told you!” Christa said. “He barely tells anyone. _I_ had to wrangle it out of him and I’ve known him since he was a bratty teenager!”

“It doesn’t matter, that’s why,” Jean replied. His voice was still so faint and tentative. Claudine made a small snuffling noise that made him look down immediately, and he only relaxed when she did. “She’s only temporary. A temporary measure. No one should care. No one needs to know. Everyone would think it was some big deal. But it’s not. M’still me.”

Marco frowned. It sounded as though everyone thought exactly the opposite of what Jean wanted them to. “It _is_ a pretty big deal,” Marco admitted, but that only made Jean shrink away. “B-but I’m sure you’re capable of handling it!” he said, back-tracking rapidly. “A baby is a big responsibility, but it’s something everyone does at some point! I mean, your sister left her with you for a reason, right? She must have thought you could handle it.”

Jean chewed that one over. Claudine was still now, and as Marco took a closer look he noticed that she had fallen asleep. She was far too bored by the riffraff surrounding her. Jean, however, was letting out a sigh of relief. “Finally, she sleeps,” he murmured.

Christa looked as relieved as Jean did. “She wouldn’t settle earlier,” she said. “I tried everything. She’s just as stubborn as you are, must be the family gene.” Jean shot her a glare at that.

That was, it appeared, her cue to leave. She rose from her seat with an apologetic smile thrown in Marco’s direction. “It was nice to meet you, Marco,” she said, “but I have to go to work now. My babysitting duties are done for the day.” She turned to Jean. “And I’m working tonight too, so you’ll be on your own. Think you can handle that?”

“Whatever,” Jean muttered, but the way he stared down at Claudine gave the impression he was anything but fine with it.

His eyes were on Claudine and Claudine alone when Christa shook Marco’s hand and walked away without so much as a ‘goodbye’ uttered in Jean’s direction. Marco tried not to dwell on it. They might have been so close that they didn’t have any need for goodbyes. His coffee was almost cold. He drank a little anyway, lip curling at the less than pleasant taste, and let his eyes flit onto the dozing baby. The way she had a fist curled tightly in the fabric of Jean’s jumper made Marco think that she was desperate to stay next to him, and that single hand was enough to keep her safe in the knowledge that she was. He smiled again, softer this time, and took another sip of chilling coffee. They stayed like that for a while, just sat in silence as if scared that the slightest noise would rouse her, but then Jean spoke. “Do you want to leave now?” he asked, in a small voice.

Marco paused. Jean was still looking at Claudine, but he could see the way his teeth were gnawing at his bottom lip ever so slightly. He would have been shaking, Marco was sure, if he didn’t think it would wake Claudine. He frowned. “Why would I want to leave?” he asked.

Jean flinched, and looked back at him. There was the look again. Lost. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Marco shook his head. “Not to me.” Jean’s eyes narrowed. “Jean, I don’t care. Honestly. You’re looking after a baby for your sister. That’s alright. In fact, it’s kind of impressive.”

“Impressive?” Jean’s eyes narrowed even further.

Marco smiled. “Well, yeah. Not many people would stay in your position for long. You’re sticking it out. That’s something to be admired, surely?”

Jean mumbled something unintelligible and drew his arms tighter around Claudine. She let out a small grumble at the movement, but relaxed back into sleep the moment Jean froze. For someone who’d had a baby around for over two months, Jean did seem a little jumpy around her, no matter how much he tried to hide it. That was to be expected, Marco figured, considering the fact that he hadn’t put in for it. “Can’t handle not being able to sleep,” Jean said after a moment. “I need to sleep to work on my paintings. No work means no money and then little miss here’ll go hungry. Then what do I do, go to a charity or some shit?”

“Do you get a lot for your paintings?” Marco asked. He hoped it wasn’t too personal a question.

Jean shrugged. “They can get me by. I stopped studying, and I left the shitty job I _did_ have to look after the sprog here.” He motioned to Claudine. “But like I said, no paintings equals no money and then everything goes to shit.” He stopped then, as if he realised he’d spoken more than a few sentences and that was most unlike him, and heaved out a sigh. “You don’t have to sit here and listen to me whingeing, mate. Just go back to work.”

“It’s okay.” Marco frowned and leaned in closer. “You don’t have to be proud, you know. Babies are hard work. And a lot of people need extra help.” Jean scoffed. Marco’s frown deepened. “It’s okay to vent, you know. And it’s okay to ask for help. There’s no weakness in it. If it’ll help you out, it’s better in the long run, right?”

“I get enough help, thanks,” Jean pressed. “Christa’s been good to me… better than many people would, at least. But she can only help for so long. She works two jobs as it is- she doesn’t wanna trundle home only to come straight back out to babysit Claudine whilst I work for an hour or two.”

Marco thought about it for a moment. He knew Jean wasn’t spinning him a line, but he felt like biting anyway. Jean clearly needed some time to himself, if not to work then at least to catch up on his much-needed sleep, and a baby wouldn’t be so difficult… would it? He had siblings back home. He vaguely remembered how to look after them. They weren’t too bad. How was Claudine going to be any different? He still couldn’t help gulping before he said, “Look, I know you’ll probably say no, but I could always watch her for a little while.”

Jean’s face took on a look of horror. “N-no, shit, no you don’t have to do that! I wasn’t asking for sympathy, I was just saying…”

“And I’m just offering,” Marco cut in. “I don’t even have to come round your house if you don’t want me to. Bring Claudine to the shop. I can have her there for an hour or so.” He gave him a gentle nudge. “God knows you need a break.”

Jean squinted at him. “Do I really look that shit?”

Marco laughed. “A little.”

“Fuck.”

“You shouldn’t swear in front of the baby.” Jean gave Marco a look that clearly said ‘I can swear if I fucking well want to’ so Marco quickly covered up his comment with a good-natured chuckle. It seemed to work. “Just… think about it, at least? I’m around, if you want me to be. And believe me, anything I have that looks like a life is actually a crude mock-up.” Jean worried at his lip with his teeth. He still looked unconvinced. “Look, you have my number, right? Just… give me a ring. If you change your mind. Or come to the shop, I don’t have a day off ‘til the end of the week now.”

“What about that guy you work with?” Jean asked as Marco finished up his coffee and nearly spat it back out again at how cold it was.

Marco snorted. “Marlow will do as he’s told. He’s not the boss of me. Honestly Jean, it’ll be fine.” That wasn’t strictly true; Marlow was definitely the most responsible of the two of them, and if anyone was the boss it would be him. But that wasn’t the point, and Marco figured that Jean didn’t need to know that.

Jean kept on chewing his lip. “I’ll think about it,” he decided after a moment.

Marco shrugged. It was answer enough. “If it helps you out, it helps you out.”

Jean chuckled to himself at that, like Marco had made a genuinely amusing joke, and before Marco even had to prompt him he answered, “You really are a stubborn bastard, aren’t you?”

Marco frowned. “What do you mean?”

Jean scraped his chair back from the table and rose to his feet as carefully as he could, shifting Claudine into a better position as he did, and looked down at him. “You know what I mean, Ponytail. You know.” For a single, horrifying moment, Marco thought that he had managed to offend Jean in some way by offering help. He thought back to their words on the bridge, and remembered how Jean said that wanting to help people was an inherently selfish thing to strive for. He stood up too. The panic was evident in his eyes, for Jean took a step back with a flicker of worry. But then, the corners of his mouth tilted up. It set a blaze of fire going in Marco’s stomach. “You just can’t help helping, can you?”

Marco opened and closed his mouth a few times, hoping his lips would help him out where his brain was failing to find words. Eventually, he settled for a simple, “I guess I can’t.”

Jean made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, kept the up-tilt to his lips and nodded to him. “Thanks,” he said.

Marco blinked. “For what?”

Jean shrugged. “Nothing much.”

And then he was gone, walking into the shallows of the crowd with Claudine sleeping soundly on his chest. Her little face was a little squashed against the curve of his shoulder, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She just let herself be carried, lost in sleep, in her uncle’s arms and into the sea of faces. Marco watched them go, wondering how Jean had come to be stuck with a baby and why he’d seemed so terrified about being found out. But then all questions disappeared when Jean paused in the middle of the crowd.

Marco frowned. Jean looked back at him.

And then he smiled.

And smiled _properly._

Marco didn’t like the way it lit up his face. He didn’t like the way that Jean looked all the better for smiling. He didn’t like the way it brought him alive from something grey and dead. He _hated_ the way that he wished Jean would smile like it more often. “Oh, shit,” Marco whispered under his breath. He smiled back at him until his figure vanished for good in the traffic, and then let it fall off his face and shatter on the table in front of him. _Ohh you are in trouble, Bodt. You are in a heap of trouble._

It took Marco a moment to realise that Jean had forgotten his coat, and even longer to realise that he’d knocked the remainder of his cold coffee onto his trousers.

* * *

“Okay, slow down.”

“I can’t slow down! I can’t deal with this, Mikasa, and you know I can’t!”

“Marco, Marco, please. Relax. I’m getting a headache.”

Marco was half-running back to work, his phone crammed against his ear whilst Jean’s coat was tucked under his arm. He was hot and cold all at the same time, and this time he was sure it had nothing to do with the medication. “Mikasa, I _can’t_ do it. I can’t go through it again, I just can’t.”

“What happened?” There was an edge to her words that made Marco’s voice stutter.

“He smiled, Mikasa. He smiled at me and I think my stomach exploded.”

“Uck.”

“Be serious!” Marco raked his free hand through his hair as he walked, dodging a teenage couple coming in the opposite direction. “My body cannot betray me like this. I won’t let it. I can’t.”

“Marco, your stomach flipped at a pretty smile. It happens. Although, I doubt very much that the _Jeen_ guy has anything pretty about him…”

Marco bit his lip. “I-it’s pronounced ‘Jean’ actually.”

There was unimpressed silence at the other end of the phone. “Listen, just calm down. I get jitters sometimes. It doesn’t mean I wanna jump on the guy who gave me said jitters and bang him all the livelong day until I can’t walk.”

Marco gulped. “True.”

“Well, there you are. So just calm down, and don’t think anything of it. Could just be a fluke.”

There was a sudden scuffle, and another voice boomed down the phone, “Have you fantasised about him sucking your dick yet?”

“Wha-EREN STOP LISTENING IN ON OUR CONVERSATION.” Marco’s shout attracted the attention of everyone on the same street as him, and he was forced to power-walk down a sidestreet to avoid the startled stares from them all. He rested his back against the nearest wall and hissed down the phone, “Do you _have_ to be like that?”

There was a chortle at the other end of the line. “Yup,” was the pleased reply. “You’re a precious little shit, Marco, you know that right?”

Marco groaned. There were more noises of the phone being wrestled for, and five minutes later Mikasa was back on the line. “Ignore him, Marco.”

“S’what I’ve been doing for the past few years.”

“Anyway, please don’t worry about it. Like I said, it was probably a fluke. People get them. Don’t think the world’s ending just because you got a stomach flutter from a single guy, alright?”

Marco sighed. “Okay… okay, I guess you’re right.” He pushed off from the wall and carried on walking, stepping back out of the sidestreet and continuing on down the main street. “I just… it spooked me, Mikasa. It scared the shit out of me.”

“Well, even if it was a flutter, would that really be so bad?” she asked.

“Yes,” Marco and Eren answered in one breath. Marco snapped his mouth shut at the sound of his disembodied echo on the other end of the phone. Eren understood. “Look, I need to get to work now. I just… I just needed to know that it wasn’t going to be a problem.”

“Marco…”

“I need to go.”

“Why would it be such a proble-”

“Mikasa, I am hanging up. Right now. We are not talking about it.” Marco gritted his teeth at the disappointed sigh, and muttered his weak goodbye to a dialling tone. Mikasa had hung up first. He might have annoyed her, but the hot flashes of panic that were bouncing around his body like he was a pinball machine were clouding any sort of judgement he would have had. He shouldn’t have called. He didn’t _need_ to. He hated how much he needed things clarified for him.

Marlow didn’t even look up when Marco entered, too busy noting down the recent sales in their logbook. “You’re late,” he stated when Marco got around the side of the desk.

“Sorry, got held up,” Marco muttered, dragging the crate of objects towards him to pick out his next project. He made sure he slung Jean’s coat on the back of his chair, and definitely did not let his hands linger on the fabric.

Usually, Marlow would have made some sort of playful jibe at him, or at least given him a slight flick on the shoulder as he passed. Today, though, he didn’t; he just turned back to the logbook with a barely noticeable sigh. Marco was grateful. He needed the time to calm his rushing thoughts and chase the butterflies back into their cage.

* * *

 

Jean didn’t ask him to meet up the next day. Or the day after that. Marco couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, as he sat at his work station poking at the squashed sandwich Sasha had thrust into his pocket as he’d left the apartment that morning. He tried to remind himself that he wasn’t meant to be disappointed, that Jean was probably busy, but it didn’t do much good. Still, he very firmly imagined a heavy anchor being dropped on all potentially inappropriate thoughts as he worked. That made him feel a little better. So long as the anchor was there, he would be alright. He could survive.

And yet, here he was, fixing something he eventually wanted to give away. He was in trouble.

He’d started off with Bertha. He managed to finally fix her after a meticulous number of hours he could have spent doing far easier things, and now she was running perfectly fine. Marco had to admit, he’d missed being able to bike everywhere instead of having to take the slow way round. And the alterations he’d made to Bertha made sure that she would run faster than she had before, too- he didn’t know how he managed it, but the old mechanics manuals Marlow had lumped him with actually helped. They had been Marlow’s brother’s, and Marlow just left them lying around with no intention of selling them. He seemed glad they had come to some use. But that left Marco open for a new project.

He hadn’t thought much of it when he excavated the little music box out of another box full of randomised bits and pieces, but after Marlow shined it up a little Marco noticed how vibrant the colour was underneath. It was only a little box, but the varnished wood beneath was a rich and deep colour, and it looked like it was once a prized possession. It would look beautiful, Marco decided, once it was all finished. So he set aside all his other half-completed things and set to work on the music box, and quickly realised that it needed stripping of its musical components and get new ones put back in their place. He was currently trying to unhinge the old, broken parts from the shell of the box, but like an oyster reluctant to give up its pearl, the little device wasn’t making it easy.

After the fourth, “Oh, motherFUCKER,” that spilled from his mouth, Marco gave it up for the poor excuse of a sandwich. He dropped his tools and reached for his lunch, peering at the sandwich suspiciously. Sasha was usually pretty good with fillings and cooking, but her pregnancy had brought with it cravings that she had also forced upon Marco. He just hoped it wasn’t anchovies and jam again- that had been the new low in his book.

“You got funky sandwiches again?” Marlow asked, walking back into the shop with the takeaway coffee he always ordered. “You shouldn’t make a pregnant lady make your lunch for you, how stuck in the 1950s are you?”

Marco smiled. “I don’t ask her to! She just does it- I feel rude not accepting. Besides,” he fished around in his bag and passed another cellophane-wrapped sandwich to Marlow, “she made one for you, too.”

“Oh _hell_ no. That’s way too domestic.” Marlow smirked and unwrapped it anyway, though did give it an experimental sniff before stalking back to his chair with his prize. Marco took a careful bite- and found it to contain tomato and ham. Though the horseradish was a different take on things.

He was waiting for Marlow to spit out his sandwich and complain heavily about the condition of Sasha’s taste buds when the bell to the shop jingled. He hated the way his stomach clenched when he saw who walked through the door. Jean shouldered his way into the shop with the look of a man who had had very little sleep, and his eyes were slowly sinking into his face as he sought Marco out in the belly of the shop. At least now Marco knew the reason for his gaunt appearance, and that selfsame reason was currently babbling happily from a battered old car seat Jean had in one hand. _Wow,_ Marco thought with a frown as he pushed his way to the front of the shop, almost knocking over a display with Claudine’s car seat as he went, _he really does look exhausted._

“Well, look who it is,” Marlow called from his perch. “Don’t be a stranger, will you? I almost forgot what you looked like for a moment.”

Jean’s gaze zeroed in on his tormentor and flashed with anger. “Why don’t you piss off?” Jean snapped.

Marlow arched a brow. “You will be the one doing the pissing off, if you don’t mind.”

“Will I fuck.”

“J-Jean, hey,” Marco said, stepping into the other man’s line of sight before he could argue with Marlow further. “Don’t step up to it. He likes using sarcasm to seem smarter than he really is.”

“Hey, shut up!” Marlow said. He then spotted the car seat. “What is that?”

“What do you think it is?” Jean replied waspishly.

“Jean. Ignore him.” Marlow let out a scoff and slipped off of his chair to poke around in the back office for some paperwork that he needed to file. Marco clicked his fingers in front of Jean’s face to get him to focus, and Jean almost jumped back in surprise. Marco smiled. “Hey. You don’t look so good.”

Jean’s features seemed to soften all at once. It was as though Marco had stepped past an invisible boundary Jean liked to throw up to catch people out, and it made Marco’s smile all the more genuine. “I feel like shit,” Jean offered him, raking his free hand back through his hair and pulling his beanie off as he went. “Not surprised I look it too.”

“How many hours did you get?” Marco asked.

“Not enough,” Jean grumbled. “I threatened to give her away to the goblins and she still refused to sleep. Worse, she started crying. And then screaming. She’s a little shit.”

Claudine let out an intensely loud gurgle like she was trying to butt into the conversation, and Jean raised a brow down at her. “I don’t know why you’re so happy, Princess, you _refuse_ to sleep. That’s twice as bad.” She gurgled again. Jean frowned. “Don’t you sass me.”

“Aw, Jean!” Marco crouched down to get a better look at the perpetrator in question, and grinned when she was revealed to him, blinking rapidly at his close proximity. “Hey there, sweetie,” Marco cooed, wiggling a finger at her. “Are you being a bother, huh?” He could actually see what Claudine was wearing this time around, and smiled at the blue babygrow with white stars speckled across it. “I like your clothes. _Very_ fancy.”

“She suits blue,” Jean mumbled. “And she likes her space pyjamas.”

Marco chuckled. Jean looked startled at the noise, and the hardness came back to his face like he realised how much he had lost in a single minute. “Anyway, uh, I was thinking about what you said, and I wondered if… well, if you don’t mind…” He trailed off and just gave him a look that resembled a begging puppy.

Marco grinned, rising to his full height. “It’s fine, Jean. I can keep an eye on her for an hour or two.”

“Y-you’re serious?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

Jean looked like he was on the brink of smiling again. But then he frowned. “I don’t… I can’t pay you. For looking after her, I mean.”

Marco smiled. “It’s a favour, Jean, that’s all.”

“A favour?” Jean blinked at him, as though he didn’t understand the meaning of the word.

“Yes, Jean, a favour,” Marco laughed. “It’s what friends do.”

“Oh.” Jean’s gaze dropped down, and Marco liked to think that there was a slight reddish tinge to his cheeks. Maybe just a tint. “W-well…”

“You don’t have to repay me, Jean.”

Jean cleared his throat. It was like he was having trouble breathing. “Right. Uh. Okay. Thanks.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just need to, uh, sleep and stuff. And maybe get started on a painting. I got a commission through, so er…”

“Just give me a ring when you’re done.” Marco smiled, and reached out a hand for the car seat. “I can just prop her up on the work top for now. And if she cries, she cries. I can handle it. Do you have any bottles or…?”

Jean bit his lip. “I didn’t know you were gonna say yes. I fed her earlier- like, before we left, so she shouldn’t need a feed… if she does, call me. Or if she needs anything. Like if you can’t change her right or she cries too much or she annoys the customers-”

Their fingers brushed together as Jean handed the car seat over, and the single touch made him stumble over his words. Marco bit down hard on his own lip. _Don’t you dare, Bodt. Don’t you fucking dare say anything._ Instead, he just smiled. He looked down at Claudine. He chuckled. _This is good, this is safe, just keep being normal._ “Go and sleep, Undercut. I can look after her. I’ll let you know if we need anything.”

Jean opened his mouth, shut it, plunged his hands in his pockets and promptly left the shop, dropping the small bag of supplies halfway out the door with a strangled noise and a, “sorry I forgot bye princess.” Marco just tittered as he set Claudine down on the top and went to retrieve the bag. When he turned back, Marlow was staring at the car seat like it had a porcupine strapped in.

“Marco, what is that still doing here?” he asked.

“It’s a baby, Marlow,” Marco said with a roll of his eyes.

“Okay, but why is it _here_?”

“Claudine’s a _she_ , not an _it._ ” He turned back to the waiting baby and smiled at her. Claudine stared back. “I’m looking after her for a while.”

Marlow was eyeing her like she would bite. “I don’t do babies,” he said.

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not the one looking after her, isn’t it?” Marco replied. Claudine stretched out a hand curiously, fingers seeking Marco with a new-found determination. When he didn’t move to her, her tiny face creased up in an attempt at a whimper. Marco chuckled and unbuckled her from her seat. “Come on little one, up we come,” he murmured, lifting her free of her car seat and rubbing her back as she lay on his chest, clutching at him tight. “There now, much better, huh? You like all the attention being on you, don’t you?” he cooed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a baby, but it was the sort of thing that bounced right back. He realised he would have to get in the practice- once Sasha had her baby, he was sure that babysitting duty would be another part of the routine. He remembered one thing vital; there was no such thing as too much winding, especially if a baby had just been fed. He knew that. Doing it, however, was another matter. He patted Claudine’s back a little too gently to make much of a difference, and waited. Claudine sneezed. Marlow looked terrified. Marco couldn’t help but laugh. “Eat your sandwich, Marlow,” he said, walking up and down the aisles of the shop with a slightly fussing Claudine.

“Yeah, whatever,” Marlow grumbled, “just don’t get the bloody thing wet after midnight.”

* * *

Jean came back three hours later. After the initial fussing and crying, Claudine had quietened down and Marco had managed to get her bundled into her car seat and get back to work without so much as a wail from her. Of course, the motorbike keys he’d given her as a makeshift rattle were doing a good job of distracting her; Marco was constantly glancing at her to check she wasn’t putting them in her mouth, but she seemed content to just shake them around and squeak with glee at the jangling noise they made. Marlow kept to himself, muttering things about ‘not a bloody crèche’ and ‘ugh babies why’ every now and again, and Marco had never seen him look so happy to see Jean come through the door.

“Hi!” Marco called out cheerily. “You look a little better.”

He did. His cheeks didn’t look quite so sunken, at least, and it did him the world of good. He even walked with more purpose, his movements far more lively as he strode towards Marco with a slight tilt of his head as he focused on Claudine. “Hey there, Princess. Whatcha got there?”

Claudine’s attention immediately snapped to the familiar voice, and Marco swore he even saw her eyes widen a fraction. Her face split into a smile, a pure smile that bowled Marco over with its unbridled happiness. There was something about a child’s smile that made it all the more special. There was no falsity to it, because Claudine hadn’t learnt how to be yet. Everything she did was honest, and Marco felt his chest fill with warmth at just how happy she was to see Jean. She began to kick eagerly, a pleased gurgle coming out of her mouth as she threw the keys in her hand with all her might onto the floor. “Whoop!” Marco dived for them before they became lost in the debris of the shop, and straightened up with a sigh. “Well, that’s what she thinks of me!” he joked. “I guess she knows who her Uncle is.”

Jean nodded. “I, er, guess she does.” He took a step closer. “She miss me?”

“She cried for a little while,” Marco admitted, “but she settled down okay. Even fell asleep at one point.”

“Not surprised, I thought she’d sleep for ages. Strange babies and their sleep patterns.” Jean took the final step and reached out for her car seat. Marco handed her over carefully, and this time their hands didn't brush. Marco tried not to feel disappointed. "Look, I know you said you didn't want paying..."

"And I don't," Marco cut him off.

"But I remembered you saying that you liked reading, and..." Jean huffed. "It's gonna sound fucking lame now I say it."

Marco frowned. "No, what is it?"

Jean ignored the happily babbling Claudine for the moment. He let her rest at his side, safe in her car seat but thoroughly ignored. Marco began to realise why she was so adamant for his attention. It wasn't like Jean meant to do it, he was sure, but ignoring was ignoring no matter what, and you couldn't explain the reason to a three month old. Jean was still summoning up enough courage to talk, but all Marco did was stand and wait. He would get there eventually. And, sure enough... "I wondered if you wanted to be paid in books."

Marco blinked. "Come again?"

"W-well..." Jean back-tracked. "You know you said you wouldn't mind looking after Claudine? Well, if you were serious, I... could sorta do with you looking after her for a little while. It doesn't have to always be here, either, but.... sometimes I just need to get away from her." Marco frowned. That sounded too... resigned. Like Jean knew it was a bad thing to say but he couldn't bring himself to take it back. He was waiting for some kind of reprimand, Marco could tell; he was waiting for Marco to tell him off, to say that was an awful thing to say about a baby who didn't know better, but Marco understood. Everyone needed time to themselves now and again, and Jean especially seemed the type to like his own space. "I just need to... I need to sleep, Ponytail. I can't sleep right with her around, and it's driving me mad. I can't... do anything when I'm tired." Marco knew the feeling. Running on empty was only good for a few days, at best. Jean sounded like he'd been having to deal with little sleep for weeks. "I need to keep up with my commissions or else everything will fall down on my head and that'll be the end of me," he finished, ruffling his hair agitatedly as he talked. Marco wondered if it was a nervous tic.

"I don't mind helping you, Jean, you know that," Marco replied. "But, what do you mean, paying me with-?"

"Well I have loads of books," Jean said, shrugging loosely, "and you could always have some. Or borrow them. I'm a bit possessive of a few of 'em. You said you liked reading."

Marco tried not to be flattered at the fact that Jean had remembered their conversation in the shop. But he couldn't help it. "Okay," he said, "that sounds good. Great."

"Really?" Jean's eyes widened a little, and Marco could see hope dancing around their edges. "I dunno if you'd like any of the books I have..."

"I can give them a try," Marco offered.

Jean bit his lip, and set Claudine down on the floor to pull something out of his back pocket. It was a rather battered paperback book, yellowing with age and with a few pages glued back in, but it was intact. "Wondered if you wanted to start with this one," he muttered, handing it over like it was a precious stone.

Marco took it, and glanced at the title. " _The Bell Jar_?" he read.

"Have you read it before?" Jean asked earnestly.

"No."

"Good. Well, er, it's one of my favourites. I like it a lot. S'very...um... I dunno, you'll see when you read it."

"Okay." Marco flicked through a few of the pages, and noticed some dark scribbles in the margins. "Are these-?"

"Oh, s-sorry," Jean said, "that's my note copy. I like making notes on the books I really like." He was flushing bright red as if he had just betrayed some kind of dark, twisted fetish and Marco smiled at the sheer innocence of it. Jean Kirschtein, the guy who hates being saved and feels guilty about writing in books. He was really something. "I have another one, but that's at home. It's a hardback, and it cost a bomb, so."

Marco smiled. "It's fine. Thank you, Jean. I'll start it tonight- I haven't read anything good in a while."

"You will?" Jean smiled then, and the smile brought a sledgehammer directly into Marco's chest cavity. Ouch, that was not meant to hurt as much as it did. "You'll have to let me know how it goes. But… be gentle with it. Like I said, it's one of my favourites."

Marco chuckled. "I will, don't worry about that." And suddenly, Marco realised how important this moment was to Jean. Giving books away was like taking away part of your soul and loaning it out to someone else for approval, and here Jean was doing just that. Marco placed the book on the table behind him, and grinned. "I'll tell you everything I like about it."

"Good. You better." Then the smile was gone, and Jean lifted Claudine up from the floor and back towards the shop door. "I'll see you soon, alright?"

Marco nodded. "Yeah... see you soon." He waved at Claudine. "Bye, sweetie."

And another smile. Another smile and then Jean was gone, out the door and into the city. Marco let out a heavy sigh and turned to the book. He hadn't read _The Bell Jar_. Sylvia Plath was the depressed poet who stuck her head in the oven - that was what he'd been told in the measly few literature classes he'd had as a teenager- and he'd never been interested in picking up any of her work. But he knew her as a poet, not a novelist, and as he turned to the first page he thought that maybe it wouldn't be too bad. He could give it a try. And, as he spotted a few hastily scribbled notes on the beginning page, he had to admit that he was willing to try mainly because of the author of the spiky, half-legible scrawl.

He only realised an hour later that Jean still hadn’t picked up his coat.

* * *

It rained that evening.

Trost wasn't one for excellent weather at the best of times, but nevertheless the rain was a little surprising. It came down in an unforgiving, wailing rush that got anyone unlucky enough to be outside soaked to the bone. Marco had been home for a few hours when the heavens opened, and he only looked up from his page to glance at the rain on the windows for a second before delving back in.

He'd been reading _The Bell Jar_ since he'd got home. He probably should have made other plans. He should have checked the mail. He should have gone out for food. Sasha was round Connie's apartment (she said that Connie had lizards, and she’d always wanted to study lizards) so Marco had the apartment to himself. He could do anything. Instead, he was curled up on their old sofa devouring the book like it was a gourmet meal.

Reading was something he didn't usually have much time for, but when he made time Marco wondered why he didn't do it more often. Books let him drift away to different planes of existence, so much so that when he finally stopped reading it would be like having to resurface from a warm and heavy ocean. If he wasn't with other people, books could sometimes help him forget. They had to be good books, really good books, books that grabbed you by the scruff of your neck and threw you into the world inside without mercy. _The Bell Jar_ didn't do that, exactly, but there was a strange sense of understanding what the narrator was going through. It felt like belonging, like he could relate to her struggles at such a pivotal moment of life. He could understand why Jean loved it so much.

He sighed. Identifying with a potentially mad woman probably wasn't a good sign. Maybe he was going mad. Maybe he would inevitably get carted off to an institution like the Narrator did.

He looked up at the rain again when it began to increase in ferocity, and frowned. He felt sorry for anyone who was stuck out in that. But sat inside, in safety, he felt comfortable. Stable. He smiled and buried into the fabric of the sofa further.

Batman was asleep beside him, ears twitching as he dreamed, and he had inched nearer and nearer to Marco's lap the longer he lay there. Now he was half over his leg, snoring gently, and Marco reached out a hand to tickle him behind the ear. A purr broke through the snores like an automatic reaction. He wasn't expecting a phonecall.

Both he and Batman jumped when his ringtone rang out in the empty apartment. It was loud and invasive, and shattered their peace and quiet, and for a moment Marco was tempted to just let it ring off so he could get back to the book. But when he saw the caller ID, he picked up. "Mikasa?" he greeted.

"Hey." Mikasa sounded a little breathless. "How are you?"

Marco shuffled deeper into the sofa. "Can't complain." They hadn't spoken to each other since Marco had called panicking, and there was a slightly strained feeling that hung over their words. Marco hated discomfort with Mikasa, but she knew better than to get him onto the relationship subject. "What's up, why are you calling me at," he squinted at the nearest clock, "nine o clock…? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Har har," Mikasa replied. "I was wondering if you'd heard from Eren."

Marco frowned. "No, should I have?"

"No, I guess not... I just thought he might have come to you. He doesn't really have anyone else."

Marco's frown increased. She was right. Eren didn't have anyone else. He had Mikasa and Marco, and everyone else had either been cut off from him or had left out of choice. The fact that Mikasa, his closest friend and virtual sibling, was asking Marco where he was couldn't mean that there was anything good going on. "Mikasa, what's happened?" Marco asked.

Mikasa didn't answer for a while. It was like she was trying to find the words to say. Eventually, she kept it blunt. "We had an argument."

"An argument?" Marco sat up a little. "Mikasa, you two _never_ have arguments."

"Yeah, well, now we have. One for the history books, I know." Mikasa heaved out a sigh. "Marco, he's refusing to go to a doctor."

"What?!" Marco was on his feet now, Batman skittering backwards with an indignant meow. He thought Eren had already gone; he'd told him to see a doctor a week ago, and he'd assumed that no news was good news. His breathing became a little shallow. "He's not gone? Mikasa, haven't you explained how important it is that he _goes_?!"

"Of course I have, that's why we had the argument!" Mikasa said. "He was adamant he wouldn't need to go, that it would just make everything worse..."

"He's an idiot," Marco said. He sounded faint. Had he sounded that faint before? He wasn't sure. He felt was though his entire spine had been frozen solid- he was too worried to even tremble. "He's such a _fucking idiot_."

"I think he's at his bedsit, but he won't pick up his phone," Mikasa said. "I can't get there, not tonight, it's too far away and the rain..."

"I'll go." Marco was already striding towards his room to grab his shoes and a thicker jacket to fend off the cold.

"Marco, are you sure?"

"I'll go. It's fine. He needs to listen to someone. Maybe he'll listen if we've both told him to stop being such a-" Marco cursed. "He's a fucking idiot. How could he, after everything? Fucking... idiot... ugh."

"Just take it easy," Mikasa soothed. "Eren's not in a great place right now and you barging in like a bull in a china shop isn't going to help. You just have to calm down, and talk to him like you would normally. I know you wanna kill him- and believe me, I want to kill him too- but you can't."

"I know," Marco huffed. Eren didn't respond well to being lectured to or shouted at. He needed to be approached calmly, like an injured lion. He laced up his shoes and balanced the phone on his shoulder as he yanked on his jacket. "I'll be there in ten, I'll keep you posted." 

* * *

He knew the drive to Eren’s apartment like it was a second home, and couldn’t help being on edge as he turned into the street that his friend’s measly little place resided. His bike shuddered a little against the wet road, but Marco managed to hold it steady as he slowed to a less panicked pace. The buildings reached up out of the ground like great concrete tombs, encasing more than fifty people in each, and not many of them were decent folk. Marco made sure that Bertha was hidden out of sight and chained securely before he even thought about leaving her. A kid with a cigarette dangling from his mouth lifelessly was watching him from the other side of the road, and Marco tried to ignore the prickle of discomfort that went down his neck. He kept his hands shoved in his pockets, looking at no one as he took the stairs to the right floor. It was a long climb, but Marco didn’t want to risk the lift.

The door to Eren’s bedsit was a tired red, the colour fading and peeling off in places, and when Marco rapped his knuckles against it he was surprised it didn’t crumble under his touch. “Who is it?” came the hollered voice from inside. It sounded far away.

“The milkman.” Marco sighed. “Open up!”

“S’open,” Eren replied.

Marco frowned. “Eren, why the hell have you got your door ope-” He stopped short when he pushed the door open and walked in. Eren’s bedsits were never nice places to live, but this one was probably the worst yet. It was tiny, there was a constant smell of something illegal wafting up from the room below and the plumbing was shot to hell. That was one of the reasons why there was a bath in the kitchen area. However, the reason why Eren was currently submerged in it with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a rubber duck resting on his knee wasn’t quite so easy to explain. Marco huffed. “Really, Eren? You could have _said_ you were in the bath.”

Eren’s eyes flickered onto him, and then went back to the ceiling. “Oh shut up, it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before,” he mumbled around the cigarette, the end glowing like a tiny flare with every suck. Marco didn’t feign to notice the fact that Eren shifted his legs a little farther apart the longer Marco stood there. He didn’t have any shame.

“True, but that’s not the point.” Marco shut the door behind him with a foot and wandered over, folding his arms as he stood over him. He huffed. “Would you mind covering your indecency?” he muttered.

Eren smirked. “Oh Marco, this is the best sort of indecency you’re ever gonna get.”

“ _Eren.”_

“Ugh, fine.” Eren crossed one leg over the other, and Marco instantly relaxed. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

He raised a brow. “I think you know.”

Eren sunk down into the bath water, his cigarette dangerously close to the tide line. “Aren’t I allowed to be scared?” he asked.

“You’re allowed,” Marco said, wandering closer. He kneeled down by the side of the bath and rested his chin on his arms as they rested on the lip of the tub. “What you’re not allowed to do is push away the people who are trying to care about you.”

“If they’re trying to care then they shouldn’t be around in the first place.” Eren shared a look with Marco that suggested he didn’t mean it, and rested the back of his head on the bath’s edge. “Mikasa told you about our fight, didn’t she?”

Marco nodded. “She’s worried. You shouldn’t cut her out like that- you know what that could do to her.”

“Mikasa needs to learn how to be without me for a few days,” Eren replied somewhat waspishly, swirling the water around him with a hand idly. “It’ll be good for her.”

“Then you really don’t know Mikasa.”

“And I guess you do?” Eren shot back.

Marco blinked. It had been a long time since he had dated Mikasa. He had dated her before… everything had happened. That felt like another time, like another version of himself stood on the other side of an invisible canyon. That version would be waving and smiling and happy. And now… well. What was he now? Marco swallowed painfully at the thought, Eren’s gaze bringing him back down to earth. “I guess I do,” he answered finally, watching the way the rubber duck bobbed on the storm-tossed sea of bath water. “I know her well enough to know when she’s really, seriously worried about you.”

Eren scoffed. He crushed his cigarette on the side of the bath and left it there. “She’s always worried about me.”

“Do you blame her?”

Eren’s expression soured. “No,” he said after a while, turning his face away. “No, I don’t. I’m a fuck up.”

“We’re all fuck ups, Eren.” Marco leant closer, dipping his fingers in the bath water. It was still hot. The warmth that swept through his hand made him shudder. “That’s why we all have to stick together, or else we’ll fall apart.”

Eren glanced back at him then. His eyes were wide and full of something Marco couldn’t pinpoint. “Don’t say things like that, idiot,” he mumbled, rolling his entire body to face him.

Marco raised a brow. “And why is that?”

Eren huffed out a sigh. “You know why not.” He reached out and played with a few unruly chunks of Marco’s hair. The thrill of pleasure that rippled up his spine was something Marco had to bite back, but Eren carried on twisting the strands around his fingers and smiling at the way Marco hummed in response. Marco let his eyes slide shut- just for a moment.

“Eren…” he sighed.

When he opened them again, Eren was a breath away.

He bit his lip and ducked his head away, another small sigh breaking free. “You need to go to the doctor,” he mumbled.

Eren drew back, running a hand through his hair to make it stick up on end. “I know… I know, but… I don’t like doctors.”

“I know. But you have to, Eren. You have to.” Marco twitched when the back of his hand knocked against Eren’s side. “Please. I don’t want to beg you, but I will if I have to.”

Eren let a half-smile cross his features. “Now, you know I’d love to see you try to beg, Marco.” There was something about that smile that suggested he was on the verge of, for once, doing as he was told.

“Get out of the bath, you goon. I’ll give you a ride to the clinic.” He turned around at the sound of Eren getting out of the bath with a small grunt, and noticed that the lock on the main door was broken. Whilst Eren was getting dressed, Marco packed him a bag. There was no way in hell he was letting him stay in a room with no lock in a complex in the state that it was.

Eren worked silently, casting a few glances over to Marco as he pulled a shirt over his head, or grabbed a stray boot, but sometimes Marco felt those glances linger for a little too long. He sighed. _Eren knew._

* * *

He didn’t have a helmet for Eren. He gave up his instead, kicking Bertha into life before Eren could protest too much. They set off at a steady roar, the bike coughing a few times as though it was trying to clear its lungs as they pulled out of the complex and onto the main road. Eren tried to talk to him but his voice was pulled out of his mouth by the wind as they rode. Marco tried to take it slow at first, but when Eren’s arms tightened around his waist he picked it up a gear. He swung around the corners a little too tight, brows furrowed in concentration as he narrowly avoided a passing taxi. “We should have taken a cab!” he called behind him, hoping Eren would hear him.

“Nah, I like this!” Eren replied. Marco wasn’t sure if Eren was feeling a little better about seeing a doctor, but if the way he started grinding on him at the traffic light was to go by, he was feeling brilliant. Marco shot him a look of loathing as he waited for the lights to change, but Eren just gave him a shit-eating smirk and butted the nearest shoulderblade. “Me so horny I love you long time,” he stated.

Marco nearly skidded off the road at that.

He demanded Eren cut it out or else he was going to dump him in the nearest dark alley and drive off. Eren promptly cut it out- although he grumbled that Marco was just saying that because he was getting flustered.

The drive to the clinic wasn’t a long one; the hospital would have been a little farther out, but the small clinic was bundled in the centre of town, and was thankfully open all hours of the night. As Marco pulled up and killed the engine, Eren’s fingers clutched at his leather jacket a little more than they had been. “C’mon, koala, off you get,” Marco said, attempting to shake him off as they stood there.

Eren gulped. “Marco, I don’t think I can do it,” he said.

“It’s okay. Just walk in there and explain. It’ll be fine.”

“What if it’s-”

“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”

Eren slipped off the bike. He landed a little heavily, shrugging his jacket a little more so it covered the most skin possible. He looked like a lost kitten dropped off at the shelter, and Marco reached out to him. He swore Eren let out a little sob as he ran a hand through his hair. “E-Eren, you know I can’t…”

“I know. I’m not asking you to come in with me. I’m a big boy, remember? I can take care of myself.” Eren stuck out a tongue, his old humour returning again in diluted form, and before Marco could stop him he’d turned his head to the side and planted his lips to the pad of his thumb. Something gave a little jolt.

“Eren.”

“What?”

“Please, go and see the doctor. I’ll wait out here.”

Eren sighed and pulled away, looking over his shoulder at the cold-looking building that didn’t seem clean enough to be a clinic. Marco could almost hear the cogs turning in Eren’s brain, the synapses firing through his system the order to do it, to just grit his teeth and do it, but he also knew how much they were struggling with his instinct to just run. “You promise?” he said, turning back. “You promise you’ll wait?”

Marco nodded. “I promise.” He smiled. “Right here. I won’t move a muscle.”

Eren bit his lip. “Okay… okay, I’m going.” He took a few steps towards the clinic, and stopped. Marco tensed. He thought he was going to bolt. He thought he would have to go tearing after him and corner him somewhere and drag him kicking and screaming to the clinic because it wasn’t fair he knew it wasn’t but he _had to go…_

But Eren was looking back at him. “See you on the other side, Marco,” he said. And then he walked right on in, the familiar stride Marco knew as Eren’s ‘cocky walk’. He watched him go, swallowed up by the building, and he knew he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t have let Eren go on without being checked, at least… and he wasn’t stupid.

Eren never took baths. He always preferred showers. And that bath would have been boiling when Eren stepped in. He was taking baths to try to make the fevers better.

Marco looked up at the sky and let out a short huff. There were no stars out today. Typical. The one time he needed them, and they weren’t there.

He heard his alarm even as he was reaching for his pills. He threw them all into his mouth and swallowed, choking a little on the bitter aftertaste three of them gave. He swallowed again, just to make sure they were all definitely gone, and let out a shudder. He needed to stop taking them like that- it couldn’t be good for his throat.

He let his eyes coast over to the door of the clinic, and he gripped his helmet a little tighter. He hoped that it was just flu. He hoped that Eren had just picked up a bug from a co-worker at the bar. He hoped, hoped with all his might, and so loudly that he also hoped the invisible stars could hear him.

* * *

Marco lost track of time. All he knew was that, when Eren eventually left the clinic, he felt like he was frozen in place. Eren looked a little pale, but otherwise seemed okay. “I think they poked and prodded every part of me,” he commented as he reached Marco. It wasn’t quite his chirpy self, but it would do. “And when I say every part, I _mean_ every-”

“Did they take a blood sample?” Marco asked. “Did you tell them all your symptoms? How you feel sick?”

“Yes, yes, for fuck’s sake you ain’t my mother. They took what felt like three pints from me, fucking doctors with their needles and their patronising.” Eren took the helmet offered him and swung a leg over the bike, waiting expectantly. “Come on, take me home. I don’t wanna be here any longer.”

“You’re coming back to mine,” Marco said firmly, mounting the bike himself.

“Ooh, forceful aintcha.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “The lock on your door is broken. Someone could come into your place in the night and…”

“And what? Steal something?” Eren’s laugh was sad. “There’s nothing in there worth stealing.”

“Eren, you’re staying with me tonight. Final statement.”

Eren huffed and headbutted Marco’s back as Marco kicked the bike into life, Bertha’s tired spluttering effectively drowning out the snide comment that Eren was sure to have made as they rounded the first bend in a wide arc. Marco tried to drive a little steadier, still very conscious of the fact that he had no helmet on, but he needn’t have bothered; Eren didn’t say a word to put him off, his mind clearly elsewhere. Marco didn’t blame him. He was glad that the rain had stopped, at least, and as he swung back to the comfort of his own area he felt the resistance return to Eren’s arms. The minute the engine died, he heard Eren mutter, “can’t stay here,” under his breath.

“Eren, do you want me to carry you?”

Eren gave him a smirk. “Is that a request?”

Marco’s expression soured. “Eren. You’re staying with me.”

“Marco. I need to go home.”

Marco sighed. “Well, you asked for it.”

Eren frowned. “What do you mean, I _asked_ for i- MARCO.” Before Eren could finish, Marco had slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and walked towards the door to the building. Eren wasn’t very heavy at all, so it wasn’t exactly a difficult feat. “Marco, put me down, right the fuck now!” Eren yelled, his legs kicking at thin air as Marco just giggled to himself. The lift was working, so he punched the button and stepped right on in, with Eren still protesting very loudly. “Marco I swear to god if you don’t put me down right now I’ll-”

“What’ll you do?” Marco asked.

“I don’t know, but SOMETHING.”

Marco laughed and stepped out of the lift the moment he could. “Keep this up and you’ll be sleeping on the floor.”

“I thought you’d make me sleep on the sofa!”

“Ymir’s still on the sofa,” Marco said, brandishing his key out of his pocket, “so you’ll have to share my bed.”

Eren was silent. Marco opened his door and stepped inside, squinting at the fact that the lights weren’t on. “Oh, Marco,” Eren murmured in his ear, “do you think you’ll be able to resist me?”

Marco gave him a shove with his shoulder.

“Summat ‘ere?” a voice slurred in the dark.

Marco flipped on the light to see Ymir sprawled on the sofa, blinking lazily up at them. “Well, if it ain’t Sir Fuck You Very Much,” she remarked calmly. “How you doing, Jaeger?”

Eren grinned brightly at her from Marco’s shoulder. “Marco’s taken me home to bang me.”

Marco snorted. “Marco has not.”

Ymir grumbled and turned over. “Whatever, just don’t make too much noise. M’sleepy and I don’t wanna hear your dumb asses bonking the donkey all night.”

Eren peered at Marco. “What is she-?”

“Just… don’t ask,” Marco said, shaking his head. He figured that now would be a safe time to let Eren go, so deposited him on the floor gently. “Ymir, has the tattoo parlour taken you back yet?”

Ymir nodded. “Yup, and I got an apartment viewing tomorrow courtesy of my boss, so don’t you worry your little head, Marco Bodt. The ex- criminal will be out of your wee humble abode soon.” She squinted. “Why d’you ask? You want more ink?”

Marco nodded. “I have something in mind.”

“Same sorta style?”

“Yup.”

“Animal?”

“A bat.”

Ymir nodded thoughtfully. “Huh. Alright then, I’ll get you an appointment.”

Marco thanked her and walked to his room, yelling a goodnight over his shoulder as he went. He was tired. He needed to sleep. He couldn’t wait for the evening to be over, so he could get lost in sleep without everything to worry about until he woke up the next morning. He was lucky- he didn’t get dreams. He just slept, slept like the dead until his body woke him up to a bout of retching thanks to his little pill rainbow. But this time, someone might actually find that out. And that someone was following him in, stretching and yawning and making a show of being there. He threw the bag he’d made up for Eren on the bed and shed his jacket, throwing it on the floor for the night before turning back. Eren was already shedding clothes, his shame still in no evidence as he peeled his layers off one by one until he was stood in nothing but his underwear, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the bed. Marco let out a weak chuckle. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your witty comebacks now,” he chided, wriggling out of his jeans as he talked.

“No…” Eren shook himself. He took a step closer to the bed, and pulled the covers back. He bit his lip. “Sometimes I get cold at night,” he said.

Marco smiled. “That’s alright,” he replied, reaching out across the bed to ruffle Eren’s hair amid his protests, “I won’t kick you out for cuddling me.”

Eren frowned. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

A flicker of worry passed through him. Eren was never tentative about anything. Something must have happened in the clinic to make him so preoccupied. It wasn’t going to be anything that Eren would share, however; Marco would just have to be patient with him. He just nodded and turned out the light, taking a breath as the darkness encased everything in a matter of seconds, and pulled the covers over them both. It was a nice change to hear another person’s breath beside him, even if he couldn’t see them. It had been a while. A long while. Mikasa had stayed with him for a few days after everything, and Marco was sure he hadn’t ever let her go.

He found himself wanting Eren to reach out and bridge the gap.

He didn’t have to wait long. Soon, there was a hand on his chest, groping blindly and somewhat desperately. He caught it in his own hand, and threaded their fingers together with a soft hushing noise, a mumbled, “I’m here” and a sigh of relief when Eren shuffled closer. He was like ice. Marco curled into him, wrapping himself around Eren like a second skin, and he heard the stuttering of the other’s breath when the warmth began to seep into him. He rested his head on the top of Eren’s, his body informing him that he would not be sleeping any time soon, and let a hand stray into his hair. That was safe. That was okay. He and Eren were fine. They were secure. They had to be.

“I’m still scared, Marco,” Eren whispered to the darkness.

Marco gulped. He pressed his lips to Eren’s forehead, as tender as he could manage without his heart shattering. “I know. But I’ll be with you every step of the way. We just have to wait.”

“Never did like waiting. But… thank you.” Eren snuggled in closer, wrapped his arms a little tighter, sighed a little softer. And just as Marco slipped into a dreamless sleep, he swore he felt Eren’s lips ghost along his cheek.

Maybe just a little.


	6. Bohemian Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another update guys!
> 
> Chapter title so named because I was playing Bohemian Like You and Song 2 by Blur for the majority of this whilst I was writing.
> 
> The support for this fic has really grown to lengths I never knew existed, so thank you thank you thank you so MUCH for reading this and enjoying the tragic nerds just as much as I do <3 but here we are. Update.  
> This chapter we see a lot of gushing about Sylvia Plath on Jean's part, Ymir being the Scottish badass that she is and Marco being happy. Properly happy. For a change.
> 
> I'll probably alter this summary tomorrow...sorta emotionally drained right now, but yeah. Enjoy guys! 
> 
> As always, my tumblr is here so feel free to squawk at me: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

Eren didn’t go home for three days. He went to work, he stayed in the house, sometimes he vanished altogether, but every night he would turn up in Marco’s hallway with an apology in his eyes. But Marco let him in. He couldn’t turn him away, not with a broken lock.

If Sasha noticed, she didn’t say anything- at last, not at first. Once Ymir left, she would cast a few worried glances Eren’s way, but whenever she spotted Marco watching her she hastily averted her eyes. Marco didn’t blame her. She was bound to wonder what was wrong. He managed to corner her one day, and explained the clinic visit to her in the lowest voice he could muster. Her eyes widened. “Oh no,” she whispered, a small, broken sound, and Marco nodded. They were both thinking the worst.

They couldn’t think like that, though.

They couldn’t.

If they didn’t live in hope, then there was no point in living at all.

And the longer it took to find out, the calmer Eren seemed. He started smiling again by the second day, and shamelessly flirting with everything that moved the next. Marco knew better, though; flirtation was Eren’s defence mechanism, a quiet sort of desperation to know that he mattered. That was why, even though Ymir had moved into her own little apartment and the sofa was free, it remained empty. Eren just needed to be near someone, and Marco didn’t mind standing in. Eren needed an anchor, and he was the next best thing.

On the fifth day, Marco was sat up in bed reading with one arm trapped under Eren’s body by the way he’d been snuggled up to, and he was forced to try to turn pages with one hand and a tongue. It was difficult. He’d taken to reading some of the notes scribbled in the margins, and his greater suspicions were confirmed; Jean really was intelligent. At some points there were full sentences (‘Why did she let this happen?’) to simple phrases (‘tree metaphor’) dotted around the book like footprints in snow. Had Jean studied it closely in English, or was this something he just liked doing in his spare time? Marco was tempted to think the latter. _Pretentious little shit_ , his brain informed him. He chuckled at that, turning the page. Then he felt it. The queasy little feeling that drifted up his stomach and threatened to breach his throat. He snapped the book shut.

  _Oh no. Not now. Not now_.

He glanced down at Eren, still sleeping, and tried to pull his arm free. It only slightly shifted him. _Shit I do not want to throw up on Eren come on come on._

He gave one final, desperate tug, and nearly sent Eren flying off the bed. “Sorry!” he called out, fleeing to the bathroom as quickly as he could manage with Eren groggily asking what was going on.

After he’d successfully emptied his innards of his past meal with an impressive succession of retching and groans, he stumbled back into his room. He blinked sluggishly at Eren, who was sat in the middle of the bed with _The Bell Jar_ in hand. “You didn’t have to wake up,” he said.

Eren looked up. “Yeah, like I could sleep with you spewing your guts up.”

Marco flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. You okay?” Eren frowned. “Must’ve been that funky takeaway we bought yesterday, I knew that meat didn’t look like chicken.”

Marco swayed on the spot, the effort of being sick sapping him of any scrap of energy he’d had. He wobbled over to the bed and collapsed onto it, groaning into his pillow. He was sick of it. Sick of being sick. Wasn’t this supposed to be making him better?

Eren poked him with his toe. “Want me to phone Marlow, say you’re sick?”

“No,” Marco said, pulling his head free of the pillow and squinting at Eren. “I need to… need to go to work…”

“Alright, but don’t force yourself if you’re too damn sick. I know what you’re like, and you don’t get sick that often.”

Marco laughed bitterly at that, but said nothing. Instead he prodded Eren in the side. “Give me my book back.”

“This ain’t your book.” Eren was frowning as he scanned the page. He wasn’t reading the text, Marco noted- he was reading the _notes_. “Is this _Kirschtein’s_?” he asked. He made a face.

Marco’s face soured. “Give it back.”

Eren grinned down at him. It was a grin Marco hadn’t seen in days, and it floored him for a moment. “It fucking is, isn’t it? HA, he has you reading sap!” Eren crowed.

“It’s not sap, now give it!” Marco lunged for him, knocking him back onto the bed with a yelp as they wrestled for it, Eren whacking him every now and again to fend him off. Marco couldn’t help laughing, even when his already tender stomach was kneed in Eren’s haste, and he only managed to prize the book free after hitting Eren around the head repeatedly. “Ow, ow, fuck, _fine_ here’s your stupid ass book, you dick!” Eren snorted, throwing it at Marco’s chest and flopping down on the bed, panting for breath. Marco grinned and picked it up carefully, making sure that it was all intact before giving Eren another whack for good measure. “Hey asshole, I gave in!” Eren yelled.

“You shouldn’t steal my things,” Marco retorted, sticking his tongue out at him.

“Even if they’re Jean’s things?”

“Especially if they’re Jean’s things.” Marco glanced back down at the section he was reading. “Besides, this is good. Really good.”

“Mushy stuff,” Eren muttered, rolling onto his stomach and peering down at Marco. “Gimme an action-packed bloodbath any day.”

Marco snorted. “Uncultured swine.”

“Hey! You’re meant to be being nice to me!”

“I got bored of that.”

“Oh, you’re a dick. That’s your secret, Bodt: you’re always a dick.”

Marco laughed and gave Eren a shove with his foot. “Go shower, you grimy little goblin.”

Whilst Eren was gone, he reached over and grabbed his phone from the bedside table, and started tapping out a text. He’d started texting Jean a few days ago- the number was still there from when he’d found Jean’s phone, and he thought it would pass the time seeing as they hadn’t had chance to see each other. What was even better was that Jean was texting _back._ It was only a few little things, sometimes even one word answers, but it was a reply, and that was good enough for Marco. He tapped out a message as he listened to the sound of his shower come on.

**To: Undercut_Jean  
\- I got to a good bit plz tell me it ends happily**

He didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

**From: Undercut_Jean  
\- I could tell u but Id have to kill u**

**To: Undercut_Jean**  
\- Youre such a dork  
  
From: Undercut_Jean  
\- maybe  
\- u doin anything today?

**To: Undercut_Jean**  
\- work (N)  
\- but im out early   
\- u wanna meet up?

He waited. This took a little longer to come through, so long that Marco was worried Jean wasn’t going to be replying. He went back to reading. He was almost done. Maybe he could get it done before he met up with him- if he wanted to, of course. It took five minutes.

**From: Undercut_Jean**  
\- yh if u wanna  
\- ill have to bring sprog

**To: Undercut_Jean  
\- that’s fine! I thought you called her princess?**

**From: Undercut_Jean**  
\- I do when she deserves it   
\- today shes sprog

**To: Undercut_Jean  
\- ohhh dear**

Marco wondered what that implied. Probably more lack of sleep on Jean’s part. He continued to text him in between reading more of the book, finding that he would just be delving back into the story when he would be hooked out again by a text alert.

“You talking to Trost’s own Edgar Allen Poe?” Eren called out , popping his head around the door. His hair was plastered to his scalp, and beads of water dripped onto the floor as he stood there, leering at him.

Marco scowled at him. “Go back to your hole.”

“You’re a shit liar.”

“Get dressed!”

“Fine, if you insist.” Eren pushed the door open and didn’t hesitate in dropping his towel with a pleased grin.

Marco glanced up from his phone, looked Eren up and down, and then returned to his book. “So grown up,” he muttered, not letting his eyes leave the page as he heard Eren crossing the room to get to his clothes. His ears were burning, but more to do with the temperature he was running than Eren’s nudity. As he had said before, being friends with Eren meant that Marco had seen pretty much everything his friend had to throw at him, and Eren liked to wobble the boundaries of friendship a lot- some would say _too_ much.

Marco only looked up when he saw Eren fling on his shirt out of the corner of his eye, and posed the question, “You going to be doing anything later?”

Eren paused halfway through slinging on one of Marco’s old hoodies. “Don’t think so, why?”

“Ymir called. Said she has an appointment for my tattoo sorted. I think I'm gonna have it in the same place as the others, so I might need some help with the aftercare... if you don't find the idea of weepy skin disgusting."

Eren wrinkled his nose. "I could probably turn down way better offers, but I suppose because it's you I could help."

Marco grinned. "Aw, Eren, you do care." A pair of balled up socks were thrown in his direction, causing him to break out in a brief cackling spell whilst Eren leapt onto the bed and tried to tickle him into submission. As Marco tried to bat him away, laughing like he thought he would burst, he came to the conclusion that they both weren't as mature as they tried to be. Maybe they were both just scared little kids, deep down.

* * *

That lunchtime, he decided to meet Sasha. He finished at midday, as Marlow had somewhere to go and he didn't want Marco running the shop alone unless they got some kind of rush (even though Marco reminded him that they never got rushes). But still, he couldn't complain; they were still making money, after all, even if it was a measly amount to spread between two.

Jean said he wouldn't be around for an hour or so after Marco clocked out, so he rode Bertha to the flower shop with a smile and a bag of tomato juice in tow. Sasha was busy serving someone when he arrived, and he waited patiently until she was done before he stepped in. "Hey Sash', brought you some-" He stopped short. Sasha had just taken a swig of what was clearly orange juice, and he noticed an empty carton of tomato juice kicked under her counter. "Seems someone got here before me."

Sasha beamed. "Connie came to visit! He works in a wholesale type place when he's not studying, proper organic stuff, and he said he had a bunch of surplus he didn't mind giving to me. It was only going out of date, anyway."

Marco made a curious noise. "I haven't seen him in a while," he commented.

"Oh, well Ymir made him nervous, and I think Eren freaked him out a little bit after he told him about his ear fetish."

"Yikes. Poor guy." Marco winced. If he was honest, he didn't blame Connie for keeping his distance where Marco's friends were involved. They weren't exactly... normal. But Marco liked it that way. "Well, you can tell him that I'll keep Eren under control if he wants to come over again soon."

Sasha nodded. "I will. He's so nice, Marco, he's a really nice guy, and usually I'd be a little suspicious of that. But he doesn't seem like he has a bad bone in his body."

"He... seems nice, yeah." Sasha averted her gaze, attending to a pot of geraniums, and Marco peered at her. "Has he asked about the-"

"About Burpanator? He has," Sasha said, "but not like... he asked when it was due and if I knew it was a boy or a girl. I said I wanted to keep the sex a secret and that was it, really."

Marco frowned. That was odd. He at least expected a question about the father, but nothing? "Maybe he respects your privacy," he said.

Sasha chuckled. "Oh, Marco, you almost sounded romantic then."

"Oh, don't you know? I'm heartless." Marco flicked her nose playfully and grinned at the way she scrunched it up. "C'mon, let's go get food."

Sasha's favourite place was a sandwich shop near Pixis' Moustache, and Marco was willing to go anywhere. The people walking to and from work were shocked out of their senses to see a biker with no helmet and a tiny ponytail shouting at his pregnant passenger to ‘stop screaming you’re scaring the engine’, but Marco knew it couldn’t be helped.

Sasha ordered the most bizarre baguette on the menu, whilst Marco went for his typical chicken and stuffing. As they ate, they talked about work. Sasha had sold an eccentric old lady a Venus Fly Trap. Marco had sold the majority of the books in the bookshelf, and was pining for them. Sasha had an order for a bouquet, and she wondered who would have lilies at their wedding- weren't they a funeral flower? And so it went on, chatting amicably like they always did, and Marco always listening. Sasha had a way of talking that just kept you hooked; she would flail her hands around like she was trying to describe everything with them, and at one point she knocked off a salt shaker and let out a very loud, "WHOOPS" to alert everyone in the shop of her blunder. Marco scooped it up for her; he always thought it impolite to let a pregnant woman struggle.

They had been talking for what seemed like hours, so much so that Marco spotted a familiar pair walking towards the coffee shop. He couldn't mistake the little blonde and the skinny undercut. He inclined his head towards the glass. "It's Jean."

Sasha was on her third sandwich (she demanded that it was the Bump's fault) and sprayed out breadcrumbs as she retorted, "He's taller than I thought he'd be. Still grumpy, though."

Marco rolled his eyes. "I did say I was going to meet him..."

"You gonna bunk me off, Bodt?" Sasha tutted. "The nerve of it, leaving a lady so heavy with child all alone..."

"You're five months gone."

"Not the point."

Marco chuckled. "Look, you wanna come say hello? He's really not that bad. And Christa's lovely."

"That his girlfriend?" Sasha gazed out of the window at him. "They don't look suited. He'd squash her in bed. Or poke her eye out with those elbows of his."

"Sasha! Christa's not his girlfriend! She helps out with his..." Marco trailed off. Jean wasn't holding Claudine, he noticed. Christa was the one with the kicking bundle, looking extremely put out. "...his baby."

"Baby?" That got Sasha's attention. "Well why didn't you SAY so? This I gotta see, grumpy butt Undercut has a baby!" She was out of her seat and rushing to the door with remarkable speed for a pregnant woman, and Marco was soon scrambling after her.

Jean's eyes immediately locked with Marco's as he crossed the street, and he gave a small smile in greeting. Marco's stomach fluttered again. _Stop it, this is not the time_. Jean had a beanie on again, but this one was a royal purple colour. He also had a thick scarf wrapped around his throat, also purple, though that seemed faded with age and Marco could see holes in the material similar to his own black one. When Jean noticed that Sasha was bounding towards them too, his hackles went up. Marco wasn't surprised. Especially seeing as Sasha didn't even bother introducing herself before she swooped on Christa and Claudine and squealed, "OOOH HOW CUTE" obnoxiously loudly.

Marco winced. "I'm, er, sorry about her," he said, plunging his hands into his coat pockets. "She's my roommate."

Jean was staring at Sasha like she had stepped in something. "I-uh- is she alright?"

"So cuuuuute." Sasha was wiggling her fingers at Claudine and making funny faces at her in an attempt to get her to laugh. Claudine, much like her uncle, was just staring at her, bemused. It even morphed into a frown at one point, and Marco had to stop himself from laughing at the way Sasha's face fell.

"She likes babies," Marco answered for her. "She's harmless, honest."

Jean blinked. "She's weird."

"She knows."

For a moment, Jean looked like he was going to walk away. But then Christa started talking to Sasha, and Sasha started talking like a normal human being, and he relaxed a fraction. Just a fraction.

He was still uncomfortable with how many people there were, Marco could see that, and when they were waiting in line for their coffee he muttered, "she wasn't meant to come. I know you're not a fan of lots of people, and she's a bit overwhelming at times..."

"Understatement of the century," Jean replied. "But I don't mind. She's your friend, so." He shrugged, then narrowed his eyes at him. "How did you know I was uncomfortable?"

"You fiddle with the ends of your sleeves when you're nervous." Jean stared wordlessly at him. Marco just smiled, ducking his head a little to avoid the full glare of Jean’s confusion. “Sorry. I’m the observant type.”

“No… no, it’s… it’s fine…” Jean cleared his throat. “Have you finished _The Bell Jar_ yet?”

Marco nodded. “I finished it earlier. Work was slow.”

“Did you like it?” There was an eager spark in Jean’s eyes at the question, and Marco wanted to ignite that spark more than anything.

He thought about his answer carefully. “It’s kind of bittersweet, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping forward as the queue moved.

Jean bit his lip and nodded. He was smiling, though. Only a little. “It’s beautiful though, isn’t it?”

Marco frowned. “I just thought it was sad,” he admitted after a breath. “I’m not sure if something sad can be called beautiful.”

Jean snorted. “That’s the best kind of beauty, sadness. There’s no chance of it being snatched away if it’s already as low as it can be.” He cleared his throat, and he reminded Marco of someone who suddenly remembered they were speaking out of turn.

But he wanted to know what Jean thought. He didn’t want him to stay quiet on his opinions. That was what prompted him to ask, “Do you think that being happy can’t be beautiful, then?”

Jean blinked. “No, not exactly. I’m just saying that sad beauty seems more precious. Happy beauty is fleeting.” He shrugged, colouring at the conversation. “You never know when it’s going to vanish out from underneath your feet.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

Jean gave him a look. “Ponytail, it _always_ does. No one can be happy all the damn time, not even you.”

Marco huffed at that. He knew that- but he could sure as hell try to be. Nobody wanted to be bothered by his problems, not when they had problems of their own. He changed the subject. “Do you think she was really mad?” he asked.

Jean shook his head. “No, society just thought it was the best place for her.” He paused. “Did you… did you identify with her a little bit? Just a little?”

“Yeah,” Marco said, “and I’m not sure why.”

“Me too!” And suddenly Jean was alive again, eyes bright and smile threatening to burst through. Marco realised that it was eagerness. “Isn’t it strange? The way everyone can relate to a so-called madwoman? Wasn’t Sylvia Plath a _genius_?”

Marco couldn’t help smiling in return. “I don’t know, but I think I want to read more of her stuff now I’ve read _The Bell Jar._ She’s pretty good. I don’t think I can judge her as a genius yet, but I might.” Jean looked at Marco like it was Christmas. And then, he started rambling. Marco hadn’t heard him talk so much before. His sentences bumbled together like they were in a hurry to rush out of his mouth whilst they had the chance, and he seemed to be fizzing with all he had to say.

He was still talking after they’d ordered their coffees and were walking outside to the table, still talking about metaphors and assonance and themes, and Marco couldn’t help chuckling. Jean’s speech abruptly stopped. “What?” he asked, shrinking away again.

Marco smiled. “Nothing. I just like seeing you so excited about something.”

Jean flushed from the tips of his ears to his chin, and buried his buried his face in his scarf. “I just have a lot of things to say about Sylvia Plath, alright?” he mumbled into the fabric.

“I wasn’t complaining!” Marco replied, but the damage was done. Jean was silent again.

When Jean handed the coffees over he took care to move Christa’s as far away from Claudine as possible before sitting down himself. Claudine reached out to him, but he ignored her, sitting back down with a huff of breath expelling from his lungs.

Sasha was still there, and snatched the honeycomb hot chocolate Marco had gotten for her greedily, even letting out a small cheer. Christa giggled at her. “Oh, Marco, Sasha was just telling me about what you two get up to. It sounds like there’s never a dull moment in your house!”

“Not really, no,” Marco smiled. “We’ve had a few people staying with us lately, so it’s been even more of a mad house.”

Sasha bobbed her head in agreement. “Yup, Eren’s always a whirlwind to be around!”

Marco felt Jean’s eyes flick over to him. “Eren’s staying with you?” was the question that flew out of his mouth.

“Yeah. It’s a long story, but he should be back home soon,” Marco replied. He’d forgotten how much they disliked each other.

Jean huffed something Marco didn’t catch, and took a strong sip of coffee.

The conversation flowed rather easily after that, though Jean wasn’t really involved for long. He soon lost interest in the innate chatter of Sasha and Christa, Marco’s polite laughter and Claudine’s babbles. Marco was watching him, though, and noticed when he pulled out a tiny sketchbook and an equally small pencil. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t want to spook Jean any more than he already had. He continued to listen to Sasha and Christa’s conversation idly, though he paid more attention to the way Jean was sketching out construction lines on a shape that was distinctly face-shaped. Maybe… _no…_ his face shape? Marco flushed and forced his eyes away, trying to focus on the way Sasha was telling the Venus Fly Trap story and not on the man who was so carefully sketching him when he thought he didn’t know. He tried not to move. Tried not to smile too much. But the more he did that, the more aware he was of the charcoal scratching against paper. He couldn’t help glancing over a few times. Every now and again, just to see how he was getting on. When he saw his eyes getting drawn in, he gave a very dry swallow. _Oh god._

And then he was thrown into the conversation a little roughly.

“Marco, isn’t that Ymir?” Sasha pointed to a heavy purring motorbike waiting on the other side of the street for the lights to change. The rider had one foot on the floor and a hip cocked as they waited, the bike revving in impatience, and soon most of the café’s customers were staring at it. Marco couldn’t be sure, but if the ‘fuck off’ boots and all-leather suit was anything to go by…

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to no one in particular as the lights changed and the bike tore towards them. For a moment, it looked as though they weren’t going to stop. Christa gave out a little cry of surprise as the bike mounted the kerb, and Jean nearly leapt out of his seat. Marco, however, knew better. Once the engine was cut and the helmet removed, his look soured. Ymir had her hair strained back in a ponytail today, but that still didn’t save it from the wrath of helmet hair. Her eyes immediately fell to him. “Hey fuck-nut,” she greeted brightly.

 “You gave us a heart attack!” Marco protested.

“Should’ve been paying attention, shouldn’t ya twinkletoes?” Ymir threw her helmet at him, and Marco was thankful for his quick reactions. “Saw you sat pretty out here and thought I’d come say hello. Also my three o’ clock cancelled so we can have at it now if you want.”

“Have… at… it?” Christa blinked.

Ymir looked up- and her lidded expression promptly changed. Her eyes snapped open. Her loose posture straightened. And then she grinned. “Well, hey there,” she said, “and who are you?”

Christa looked even more confused. “Who are you?” she asked back.

“Huh. Assertive. I like that.” Ymir winked, and Christa blinked again.

“Ymir, you’re embarrassing yourself,” Marco remarked.

“Shuuuut the fuck up.” Ymir flicked him on the nose. “You don’t know nothin’.”

“She means my tattoo, Christa,” Marco answered for Ymir, as she was too busy leering at the poor girl. “Ymir here works at a tattoo place, and I’m due some new ink.”

“You have tattoos?” Jean asked. It was the first time he’d spoken up since Sasha and Christa had started talking. He was looking cautiously at Ymir, as though she’d bite him if he looked for too long.

Marco nodded. “Yup. I have a few, down the back of my shoulders.”

“Oh.” The response sounded a little strangled. Was that blush on Jean’s cheeks still due to the weather? Marco couldn’t be sure. “R-right.”

Ymir squinted at Jean. Marco felt a flare of panic pass over him. _Oh God Ymir please be nice._ “Whats’amatter with you, Ragtag, cat gotcha tongue?” she demanded. Jean blanched, and inched his chair back a little. Ymir noticed the movement and threw up her hands. “Shit, sorry I asked. Anyway,” she continued, thrusting her thumb in Christa’s direction, “who’s is the wee bairn? Ain’t yours is it, lassie?”

“I’m not a dog,” Christa said bluntly (Marco suppressed a snigger at the way Ymir’s face dropped), “and she’s not mine, no. She’s Jean’s.”

Ymir scoffed. “Y’know, I once punched a guy for talking French.”

Jean, if it were possible, grew paler.

“Ymir, come on, knock it off,” Marco said, shooting her a look.

Ymir stared innocently back at him. “I ain’t doing shit.”

“Yes, you are. Stop it.”

“Ach, you’re no fun,” she retorted, throwing her hands up in the air. “I’m sure Sash appreciates my fuckin’ stellar humour.”

Sasha just rolled her eyes- though the titter she gave was enough to satisfy Ymir’s ego.

Marco massaged his temples with a groan. Ymir was hopeless, she really was. He glanced at Jean, and mouthed a soft, ‘I’m sorry’, but Jean just shrugged and tucked his sketchbook away. There might have been a hint of a smile there again. It was too fleeting to catch.

“Anyway, you up for it now ya great freckled bastard?” Ymir asked, coiling an arm around Marco’s neck and crushing him up to her chest. “I am in the mood to permanently etch something on some lucky fuck’s skin!”

Marco tried to struggle away, but Ymir had him in something close to a headlock. “Fine, fine, just get off!” he laughed, giving her a shove when she finally released him. “Is that alright, Jean?”

Jean looked confused as to why Marco had decided to ask him. “Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked.

“Well… I did say I was gonna spend some time with you today,” Marco shrugged. “This might take a while.”

“A few hours, probably,” Ymir agreed, grabbing her helmet from Marco’s lap and tucking it under her arm.

“Can’t you still spend time with me?” When Marco looked confused, Jean ploughed on. It looked like it was a struggle for him. “I mean… can’t I come with you? I’ve wanted a tattoo… but I’m shit scared of the needles. Wouldn’t mind seeing how it works, though.”

Ymir stared at him. “Well, see here Ragtag, I get a needle, I fill it with liquid and go stabby-stabby on our good friend twinkletoes here until he passes out.”

“You don’t pass out,” Marco added. He glared at Ymir. “That was _one_ time, and you know it.”

But Jean seemed to have gained some confidence. “Don’t fucking patronise me, and don’t call me Ragtag! I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that, unless you just trace the shit on.”

Ymir smirked. _Oh no._ “Looks like we got us a wee bright spark here, huh? Well guess what Sparky, I ain’t gonna bite. If I bit, you’d know about it, trust me.”

Jean glared at her, but said nothing. He was clever for a reason, Marco guessed. “We could take my bike?” Marco said, half to break the tension.

Jean glanced at Ymir’s motorbike, and then back to Marco. He didn’t seem to think that it was a good idea, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. “Is yours like hers?” he squeaked.

Marco chuckled. “No, it’s not nearly as nice. Bertha’s a bit clapped out, but she works.”

“I bet you can still get to a nice speed on ‘er,” Ymir chipped in.

Marco doubted it. Bertha could move, sure, he’d made sure of that when he’d fixed her up, but Ymir’s bike was barely three years old. He always wanted to ask where she’d gotten it, but then realised he probably didn’t want to know. Three years ago, Ymir was still running with wolves.

Ymir gave him a playful nudge that had a bit more weight to it than Marco expected, and trotted back to her bike gleefully. Marco shook his head with a smile, and shot Jean a look. “Coming?”

Jean didn’t look sure. He’d stood up, but his hands were shoved in his jeans pockets and he was looking at the ground like a stubbornly shy toddler. He was gnawing on his lip, though. He wasn’t sure, Marco thought, but he was fighting with himself more than anything else. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, eager but nervous all at once, and Marco just wanted to steady him. Then Christa seemed to seal the deal.

“I was actually wondering if I could take a look around the shop,” she said, looking a little sheepish as Claudine squirmed around in her arms. Jean’s gaze fell on Claudine, and his shoulders drew up. He’d forgotten. Marco felt a stab of realisation. Maybe Jean _liked_ forgetting about her. He tried to ignore that thought, but the flicker of what seemed like disappointment that appeared on Jean’s face was more proof than he wanted. “But, I guess if you’re going…” Christa trailed off.

“It’s alright!” Ymir said a little too loudly. She gave a violent gesture in Sasha’s direction. “Sasha can take care of the bairn!”

Everyone’s eyes fell to Sasha. The girl in question blinked. “Sasha can take care of the bairn?” she repeated blankly.

“Yeah,” Ymir said, “you need the practice, seeing as you have one on the way.”

“God, _thanks_ Ymir.” Sasha glanced at Claudine. She smiled. “Buuuut she is a pretty cute baby. I think I could handle it.”

“W-would you mind?" Christa asked. The hope in her voice suggested that she really had meant it. It occurred to Marco that Claudine wasn’t just restricting Jean either.

“I-is that alright, Jean?” he asked. He wasn’t sure about this, and he knew that Jean would be the same. His suspicions were proved right by the way Jean’s shuffling increased, his gaze flickering from Claudine to Christa to Marco in rapid succession. Leaving his niece with people he knew was one thing- leaving her with a complete stranger was something that Jean was likely to baulk at. Marco didn’t blame him. No matter how much he forgot about her, he still cared. “You don’t have to, I can do it another time…”

“No.” Jean’s answer was firm. “No, you wanted to go. Don’t refuse because of me. Can… can your friend meet us there?”

Marco looked over to Sasha for an answer, and he got a loose shrug and a smile in return. “I’m already late back from lunch. I’ll call the boss and say I got sick. Bump stuff. He’ll let me go- pregnancy makes him queasy.”

“There we are, happy fuckin’ days.” Ymir beckoned Christa to hand Claudine over. “C’mon, you can ride on the back of my bike.”

Christa raised a brow as she gently transferred the sleepy baby into Sasha’s arms. “Oh, can I now? How do I know you won’t try to cop a feel?”

Ymir smirked. “Nah, it’ll be _you_ who’s coppin’ a feel o’ _me_ sweetheart.”

“In your dreams.”

Marco rolled his eyes at them, and tilted his head towards his own bike. Jean got the message. They crossed the road in a few strides, and once Jean’s eyes fell on Bertha Marco couldn’t help but clear his throat. “I know she’s not much…”

“She looks one step off from the scrap heap,” Jean commented.

Marco flushed. “Y-yeah, well… I don’t really have enough money for another one, so…”

Jean chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t mean it like _that_ ,” he said. “It’s just… uh… I’ve never ridden a motorbike before.”

“You haven’t?” Marco frowned at the way Jean shook his head. He wanted to ask why he’d been so adamant to come with him in the first place if he couldn’t ride, but thought better of it. “Well, it’s not that difficult. You’ll just have to trust me,” he said, swinging his leg over the paintwork and settling into the seat a little further ahead than normal. He watched him, waiting. Would there be an excuse?

Jean raised a brow. “I only met you a few weeks ago,” he replied.

Marco shrugged helplessly. There wasn’t anything he could do about that. “You want to come on the bike or not?”

Jean eyed it suspiciously. Then, he heaved out a sigh. “If I die, I hold you personally responsible,” he muttered, stepping closer.

Marco beamed, and pushed the helmet into Jean’s chest. “You won’t die, Jean. I’ve been riding this thing since I was seventeen. I know how it works.”

Jean let out a grumble at that, and shoved the helmet unceremoniously onto his head before awkwardly mounting the bike behind Marco. “So, uh… how do I hold on?”

Marco chuckled. “You either grab onto the back of the seat, or you grab onto me. Your choice, though you’ll be more secure if you hold onto me.”

Jean scoffed, and Marco could practically hear the blood rushing to his cheeks. “I’m fine with the back of the seat, thanks.”

Marco shrugged. “Alright, whatever you say.” He realised that Jean was a liar when he turned the key in the ignition. When the bike spluttered into life, Jean let out a curse and flung his arms around Marco’s waist, the helmet smacking into his shoulder blades. Marco grunted at that, and Jean apologised over and over, his grip only getting tighter on him. “You alright?” Marco asked, trying to contain his laughter as he felt Jean stiffen at the words.

“I’m fine, let me… shut up.” The voice was muffled, almost metallic behind the visor, but Marco could imagine Jean’s flustered expression and that was enough to make him chuckle.

“We haven’t even moved yet.”

“I _know_ , shit, stop talking.”

Marco laughed and waited until the clinging got less intense- namely, when he could actually breathe again- until he called out to Ymir on the other side of the street. “We’re ready!” he called out.

Christa was already sat astride Ymir’s bike, a large purring monster of a bike with the words ‘COBRA’ slashed down its bodywork. She had declined the offer of a helmet, and the bright smile she was giving Ymir was enough to let Marco know that at least _one_ of them had done this before. It was strange how well the two fitted together on the bike; they were like two mismatched puzzle pieces that randomly clicked together and created something strange. Ymir gave a thumbs up and flicked her visor up to smirk at him. She looked like the cat who’d got the cream. “Hey Bodt, wanna make things interesting?”

Marco grinned. “How interesting?” He didn’t care that they were shouting across a relatively busy road. Nobody else seemed to notice, either.

“You get there first, I knock a twenty off your price,” Ymir said. There was a glint to her eyes that meant she knew Marco wouldn’t be able to refuse such a wager.

Marco chuckled. “And if you win?”

“I get ta’ cut off that pretty fucking hair o’ yours.” She revved her engine. Her bike yowled.

Marco tried to do the same with Bertha, but all that came out was a cough of complaint. Jean burrowed closer to him, whispering something that Marco was sure was a prayer, and Marco tilted his head back to talk to him. “You ready?” he asked as the revving got louder.

“No,” was Jean’s small reply.

Bertha roared as Marco slammed her into the right gear. And then they were flying.

“MARCO.”

He laughed as Jean screamed curses into his leather jacket. He couldn’t help it. If they’d waited for Jean, he would be as good as scalped. They barrelled down the road like bats out of hell, Jean still screaming colourful insults, and Marco cast a glance on the other side. Ymir had all but flattened herself against the bodywork of her bike, legs clamped to its side like it was a charging racehorse, and Christa was holding on for dear life. Marco snorted and sped up, Bertha coughing out black smoke as he did so. The traffic whizzed past on either side of him, most ignoring the pair of idiots on motorbikes charging through the city like they were on some hellbent quest together. Ymir took the corner first, her bike howling in approval, whilst Marco zoomed around on her heels. Once he’d straightened up, he noticed that there was probably no way to get past Ymir if he was just going to floor it down the intersection. He pouted. The only way was to be sneaky. He grinned. “You feel like some dodging?” Marco yelled to his passenger behind him.

“MOTHERFUCKER SHIT BASTARD!” Jean hollered as they only got faster.

Marco laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes!”

“MARCO YOU SHI-”

Jean didn’t get chance to finish. Marco had already swerved into the traffic, and a blaring car horn broke through Jean’s protests. The good thing about having Bertha for so long was that Marco knew how she ticked, her little quirks, what she needed to get the best out of her. He moved like he was welded to her sides, ducking and dodging and diving every angry motorist he could find with ease. He ran a red light. Just one. He narrowly managed to avoid getting hit by a car coming from the left, but once they were righted again Bertha seemed to roar again and plunge forward, her dials wobbling dangerously. He looked for Ymir and saw that she was on the abandoned sidestreet, hollering warnings to the few poor souls unlucky enough to be walking there. They leapt into the street as she tore along the pavement, kicking up a lot more than dust in her wake, and a few bins got kicked over to clear space too.

Marco snorted out a laugh and swung to the right, away from her. “You’re not following her!” Jean shouted.

“I know!” Marco replied. “I know a shortcut!”

“A shortcu- oh, FUCK no.”

So, sure, Marco had decided to cut through the park. And sure, there were people there. But Marco was careful. He swerved through the iron gate into the meagre excuse of a green space, Jean shrieking like a banshee when there was a bump in the road that sent them up into the air. The bike righted herself easily enough, and Marco kept her speed steady, shouting nonsense just to get the path clear. But then he cut off the path and onto the grass, revving the engine further to compensate for the tougher ground. Bertha bleated a protest but did as asked, though the wheels spun for a brief second in the mud. Marco couldn’t help it. This was making his pulse race, the adrenaline come crackling through his body. He felt _alive._ This was what he needed.

He dived down a gentle incline with a barely contained whoop of laughter, Jean still clinging to him like a limpet, and felt the bike resist as they skidded back onto the pavement. Marco found the biting point in time, and Bertha took a heaving growl to jump back into the right gear.

Then they were back out on the streets, and it was only a case of dodging through two more main roads until the end was in sight. Marco grinned as the little black shop spun into sight as he swung around the corner, Jean’s grip so tight now he wouldn’t be surprised if his knuckles were frozen into position. And not a Ymir in sight. He let out a whistle of triumph as he let Bertha slow, and slammed the brakes on just a little to avoid the car that suddenly appeared out of a sidestreet. Jean was too close to him to really be affected, but he heard a muffled squeak of distress. He cut the engine and let out a barking laugh, giving his slightly cramping arms a stretch, and said, “Guess this means Ymir owes me a discount!”

Jean didn’t answer.

Marco realised that, even though the bike had stopped and his feet were firmly planted on the floor, Jean was still clinging to him. His feet were still curled up and away from the floor. He kicked the little stand free and leant the bike to one side, shifting Jean gently as he went. “Hey,” he said, “you can let go now. We’ve stopped.”

Jean mumbled something unintelligible and flexed his fingers against Marco’s chest. Marco hadn’t realised they had reached that far. He turned around in the seat- and felt the cool plastic of Jean’s helmet rest against the back of his neck. He damned the visor for being tinted. “Jean?” he questioned, worry stealing through him as he gently pried his hands away from him. His body ached from the lost contact, but he pushed it aside. He just as gently eased himself off the bike before helping Jean too, the other’s legs a little wobbly. “Woah, easy there!” he said, panicking as Jean lost his footing and fell forward. Marco caught him in time, and straightened them both up with a frown. Was Jean alright? Had he scared the poor guy to death with all the swerving? Jean’s shoulders were shaking. Small noises were coming from his mouth. Marco gulped. Once he was sure Jean wasn’t going to fall over, he eased the helmet off his head. “Jean, are you-?” The question died on his lips.

Jean was laughing.

He was silently laughing.

Marco wasn’t sure if it was nerves, or whether Jean was genuinely finding something amusing. But what was most important was that he found himself laughing too.

God, he looked so amazing when he laughed.

His hair was stuck up on end as though it had been electrocuted, and the wide-eyed manic laughter made him resemble a hyena. Now he’d been discovered his laughter was loud, unafraid and sharp-sounding, and broke through all attempts at peace on the street. It wasn’t ray of sunshine laughter, but it was brutal, honest laughter, and Marco couldn’t help beaming. He’d made that. He’d made it happen. Jean had hold of Marco’s forearms to steady himself, still laughing, when he finally managed to get out, “Their faces… oh my god… oh my god, that was so good…”

Marco grinned. “I’m glad I’ve converted you. See? Motorbikes are great.”

Jean clutched tighter at his arms, shaking his head as his laughter got weaker. “I… haven’t had… that much fun… in a while, shit,” he wheezed.

Marco chuckled too, and grabbed at Jean’s elbows when he threatened to buckle again. He hadn’t seen someone laugh so helplessly before. It was almost like it was a relief, a blessed relief, like Jean hadn’t thought he was able to laugh anymore. When he opened his eyes again, the tawny irises looked like they were flickering like the tongues of flame. Marco let his hands drop from Jean’s elbows. He cleared his throat. “I told you it wasn’t so bad,” he said, reaching out to ruffle Jean’s already flyaway hair.

And as Ymir pulled up seconds later shouting about Marco being a “motherfucking cheater goddamn bastard”, Marco was pleased to see that Jean’s breathless smile didn’t fade away.

* * *

The tattoo took longer than it should have done. It was mainly because that Marco wasn’t exactly used to an audience; when he had them done before, it had just been him and Ymir and the gun and that was it. But this time, he was surrounded by Christa, Jean and Sasha. Christa was paying more attention to the walls of artwork adorning the inside of the shop and asking Ymir whether or not she was responsible for this one or that one. Jean, however, hadn’t seemed to have taken his eyes off of Marco since he shed his shirt and straddled the chair backwards to let Ymir get to work.

Marco wasn’t sure why; he wasn’t exactly showing off, but he figured that it must have been the sight of all his other tattoos that patterned his skin. It wasn’t something he really talked about; his tattoos had a privacy to them that he couldn’t quite explain to people. He had a fair few of them, and they were fast beginning to eat up the space on the back of his shoulders. His first one, a raven, was stretched mid-flight across his right shoulderblade, and a hissing cobra was coiled up just below. Both were done in the typical style of Ymir’s- it was almost tribal, but the style was more jagged and feral than that enough to make them unique to her. The other one, the sunflower on the base of his neck… he didn’t talk about that.

He had felt Jean’s eyes boring into his skin just as sharply as the needle as Ymir worked, his lip barely curling at the slight pain the needle gave him. He liked to talk to keep his mind off the sensation, even though there was a small part of him that liked it. _Wanted_ the pain.

But once it was done, the ache would start, and once the bandage was on and he’d paid what was needed, Marco made his excuses to leave. Sasha had already gone, complaining of a stomach ache, and as he said his goodbyes he was looking forward to a lazy evening. He was going to feel a little woozy for a while; he could tell by the way his vision had spotted at frequent intervals during the session. He pulled on his shirt gingerly once he got outside, wincing at the cold, and shrugged his jacket on afterwards. He frowned when he realised something was missing. Where was his-?

“Looking for this?”

He spun around to see Jean standing behind him, holding out his moth-eaten black scarf. Marco smiled and walked back over, taking it from Jean’s grasp. Jean shifted the sleeping Claudine on his hip once he had his hand free. She’d tired herself out with all the crying she’d done- she hadn’t liked the sound of the needle. Marco had joked that it was as if babies weren’t meant to be allowed in tattoo parlours, but the look he got quickly quashed his humour. Sasha and Christa took it in turns to take her outside, and Marco was impressed by the way Sasha got her to quieten. Unfortunately though, it hadn’t lasted.

Still, she was asleep now, and Jean looked relieved. Marco wrapped the scarf around his throat and let his smile melt a little warmer. “Thank you.”

Jean shrugged a ‘no problem’ and squinted at the bike. “You riding that home?”

Marco shrugged. “I don’t have to. I can wheel it back, my place isn’t too far away.”

“Your place…” Jean quirked an eyebrow. “You live close?”

“Anywhere’s close in this city.”

“True.” Jean watched him as he released the kick-stand and let Bertha’s weight fall onto him a little. He gritted his teeth at the way his injured skin complained, and then he was being nudged. “Hey. Take sprog, I can wheel it.” Marco straightened up. Jean was serious? He was glowering at him, as if daring him to refuse as he held out a snoozing Claudine at arm’s length. Marco didn’t have to ask if he was sure.

He drew Claudine into his arms carefully, making sure she wouldn’t stir if he moved too quickly, but she was out like a light. She was a dead weight, her head flopping onto his chest without so much as a grumble of protest, and Marco felt instantly warmer. Jean took his place beside the bike, pushing it into submission with a grunt, and then they were walking along the street. They must have looked quite the group, with Jean struggling with the old bike and Marco casting worried glances at him over the top of Claudine’s head. But they were moving, that was what mattered, and as they got into a comfortable street, Jean started to speak.

“So, why a bat?”

Marco glanced at him. Jean was puffing with the effort of pushing the bike forward, but his attempts at small talk were getting better. “I think Eren suits a bat,” he replied.

That got Jean’s attention. His head snapped up from the bike and stared at him like he’d just admitted to murder. “You got a tattoo for Eren?” he asked. He spat out his name like a bad word.

Marco chuckled. “I know you two don’t get on, but he is my friend, you know.” _And he’s in a bad place right now and somehow I know this will cheer him up, however weird it sounds._ He hoisted Claudine up a little as he spoke. “Besides, I have a tattoo for most people.”

“Like who?”

“Well…” Marco turned his head to face Jean properly, “the raven’s for Mikasa, and the snake is for Ymir.” He wasn’t going to go into details about them. Jean probably wouldn’t understand.

“What about the other one?”

Marco stopped dead. _He didn’t talk about it._ “Uh, w-what other one?”

“The one on the back of your neck. The one your hair hides most of the time.” Jean was frowning. “Was it a mistake or something? That why you hide it?”

“N-nah,” Marco said, casting his gaze down as he tried to stop his heart from thundering into the distance like a wild horse, “it’s not a mistake.” He was cold. Had he been that cold before? It was like a chill was sweeping through him and rendering him incapable of talking. He hoped Jean stopped. He willed it.

Jean seemed to get the message. He made a curious noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t press it. _Thank you, thank you, thank you._ “So, you give them animals?” Jean was asking, and Marco shook himself out of the numbness.

“Wha- oh, yeah!” he said. His arms were beginning to ache from Claudine’s weight. “Yeah, I do.”

“What would I be?”

Marco blinked. “What, if I decided to have a tattoo of you on me?” he asked.

Jean turned bright red. “Wh- _no,_ not like that! I don’t want you to get stabbed by a needle because of me! I mean, I wouldn’t even be worth… it’s more like for… ugh, _nevermind._ ” Jean stomped ahead a little, Bertha promptly getting stuck in a drain like Karma itself was smiling down on him. Jean tugged at the handlebars frantically, swearing, and Marco just laughed as he caught up to him. Jean really didn’t work well under pressure. “Here,” Marco said, giving the bike’s rear tire a nudge with his foot to manoeuvre it free. Jean nearly fell flat on his face, but recovered quickly, shooting Marco a look he clearly thought was intimidating. It failed. All it did was make Marco laugh even more. “Don’t _laugh_ at me, shit! Am I that amusing to you?!” Jean snapped.

Marco managed to stop. He bit his tongue to stop any more giggles spilling out before he replied, “I dunno, you’re just… not what I expected you to be.”

Jean raised a brow. “What did you expect?”

Marco was tempted to answer honestly. _An asshole. A dick. The kind of guy I avoid like the plague. Someone who doesn’t make my stomach do flipflops when they smile. You bastard. You absolute bastard._ He couldn’t do it. “Not this,” he answered, softly.

Jean stared at him a touch too long. Marco chuckled again to break the tension and clutched Claudine a little closer to him. “I mean, I was bound to think the worst after how we met, right?”

Jean considered it, then sniggered himself. “I guess so. But you know what they say about bad meetings.”

“What?”

“Things can only get better.” Jean smiled and _oh fuck no not the full-blown smile._

Marco managed to choke out a ‘right’ and carried on walking. Come on Bodt, now is not the time, now is not the time at all… “So, go on. Enlighten me. What animal would I be?” Jean asked.

Marco flashed him a grin, thankful for the topic change. “Oh, that’s easy.”

“Is it?”

“You’d be a dung beetle,” he replied immediately.

“Oh, come ON.”

They continued talking as they walked back to Marco’s apartment, and Marco was bowled over by just how much Jean _could_ talk once he felt comfortable. He didn’t talk about anything in particular, but it was simple and easy and comfortable, and Marco didn’t feel bad for changing subjects or pointing out flaws in Jean’s arguments. Jean liked to talk about books. He liked to talk about dead authors like he’d met them personally, like he knew how they ticked, and Marco just listened in amusement at his ramblings. As they rounded the bend, Jean was in the middle of a rant about how Byron was infinitely better than Shelley no matter what anyone said, but he stopped dead when he caught sight of the building. “You live here?” he said, blinking up at all of the windows.

“Yup,” Marco nodded. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

“Which floor are you on?”

“The very top.” Marco pointed to the topmost window. “That’s me, right there.”

“Wow.” Jean shook himself and kicked the stand out for Bertha. It took him three attempts, but Marco managed to hold in his gentle laughter. Jean spun back around, cheeks, blazing, and rubbed the back of his neck. “So, uh… I know this sounds fucking pathetic, but I had fun today. Thanks for letting me hang around,” he said.

Marco smiled. “Anytime. I’m glad you forgive me for the motorbike race.”

“Oh fuck that, I’m not forgiving you for a long fucking time! But…” Jean sobered, his shoulders rippling with tension, “I’m grateful. I mean, having Claudine makes things a little…” He trailed off and glanced at the sky. _A little difficult._

Marco sighed. “You can still have a life, Jean. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You just need to alter it a little, that’s all.”

Jean bit his lip. “How, though?” he mumbled, a small noise that Marco only just managed to catch. He was still staring up at the sky.

“That’s something you have to figure out. But you can.” Marco gave him a small nudge. “C’mon, you can be a great uncle. You _are_ a good uncle. There’s no scale to rank yourself up against. Claudine doesn’t know any better anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for the words of wisdom Gandhi.” Jean gave him a dry smirk and beckoned him for Claudine. Marco felt odd when he handed her over, the extra warmth disappearing from his chest. Jean settled her against his chest, a small breath escaping him as she sleepily pawed at his clothes. “I should get her inside. I don’t want her to get a cold,” he said, his voice softer still as he held her. “But… I’ll see you soon?” The expression he shot Marco was definitely a hopeful one.

Marco grinned. “Yeah. See you soon, Jean.” He couldn’t mask the tenderness in his voice fast enough.

Jean’s cheeks flushed again. It didn’t stop him, however, from blurting out, “You’re a good guy, Marco. I’m glad we’re… whatever.” He shifted Claudine into a position that made it possible for him to hide the blush a little in the lapels of his coat, nodded curtly, and spun around in the opposite direction. He paused after taking a few hurried steps. He turned back. “Thank you!” he shouted back at him.

Marco grinned. “Go home, Undercut!”

“I do what I want, Ponytail!” Jean called back. Then his smile softened. Marco watched Jean go for just a little while. The smile refused to leave his face. He felt like punching the air. He hadn’t wanted to be someone’s friend so badly for a long time, however juvenile that sounded. Jean seemed the type who needed friends.

He stood there for a breath longer before the bandage on his back twinged to remind him he needed to sort it out. With a sigh, he kicked the stand back and wheeled Bertha forward, Jean’s words filling him with a warmth he hadn’t felt in a while.

* * *

Marco wasn’t this happy very often. Positivity shone out of him at every available moment, but that wasn’t the same. Feeling happy, breathlessly happy, was something he found hard to do. Maybe it was because he didn’t let himself give into the urge; there was always something nagging in the back of his mind, reminding him of all the bad in the world. Still, he was happy now, as he stood in his apartment with the half-busted old speakers he had racked up to the highest volume as he made his eighth cup of coffee of the evening (he’d taken to counting them lately- side effects, side effects). A typical night, Marco thought to himself with a breathless chuckle as he spun around in a tight circle for the umpteenth time.

He was _meant_ to be cleaning. But then ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ had come screaming through the speakers as he was mid-sweep, and that was it. He probably looked absolutely insane, spinning around and sliding on the smooth floor spouting the lyrics from memory.

Marco didn’t care.

Batman minded a _lot._

“Ow, get off!” Marco complained, breaking off mid-song as his cat latched his claws onto Marco’s trouser leg in an attempt to stop him. Marco gave him a gentle nudge away and scooted away from him, Batman following with an aggravated meow as he continued singing, his low voice suddenly reaching a pitch that almost matched Batman’s yowl of outrage. The hilarious thing was that Marco _could_ actually sing; he’d been in a mediocre band when he was 15, one of the kinds that never left the garage and only audience was that group of three girls he and his friends were trying to impress, but he was damned if he was going to let anybody find that out. Eren would never let him live it down.

It was partly Eren’s fault that Marco could do the thing with his hips, but that definitely wasn’t the point.

It was _definitely_ Eren’s fault that, midway through belting, “WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL,” Sasha and Connie walked in. Marco would have stopped right there and then, but he was mid- body roll too and he couldn’t just _leave_ it half done.

Sasha burst out laughing. “What the hell’s going on here?” she asked.

“Yeah, Jesus, the hips on you,” Connie observed. His eyes were widening by the minute, and Marco grinned a little sheepishly.

Sasha gave him a smack. “Oi, he’s my eye candy to live with, behave yourself.”

“Sasha! Moon of my life!” Marco slid across the flooring to her, grabbing hold of her wrist and yanking her in an ungentlemanly fashion towards him. “Dance with the master!”

“Marcooooo,” Sasha giggled, letting herself get spun around a few times before she wobbled on her feet, dizzy. “You’re in a good mood!”

“Should there have to be a reason?” he asked, pulling her in close to hip-bump her playfully. “C’mon, for a pregnant girl you’re very light on your feet!”

“Cheeky bastard.” She gave him a flash of a smile, and let him lead her around the room in a very sloppy version of a ballroom dance. It looked more like a frantic ring-a-ring-a-rosies with Sasha giggling as Marco swung her first one way and then the other. “Y-your tattoo! It won’t heal if you stetch i-MARCO.”

Marco finally released her after the third circuit of the room, conveniently next to the sofa for her to flop onto, panting for breath. “How do you have so much energy?” she groaned, smoothing a hand over her stomach.

“Well, for one, I’m not carrying around something the size of a pumpkin,” Marco replied.

“You sound like you got laid, mate,” Connie said, kicking the door to with a grin.

Sasha snorted. “The day Marco gets laid I’ll eat the baby’s placenta.”

“Ew.”

“Precisely.”

Marco sat down next to her, making room for Connie like it was second nature already. “Your faith in my celibacy is something to be commended, Sash’.”

“Are you saying that there’s someone that could change all that?” Marco gave her a dark, warning look. “I rest my case,” she huffed. “Placenta.”

“Please stop saying that word.”

“Pla. Cent. Ah.”

“So mature, the both of you,” Connie said, and Marco and Sasha shared a single amused look. “You’re like kids.”

Sasha made a face. “I wasn’t the one crying when your gecko had to be taken to the vet.”

“Gladys was sick, and I am allowed to be worried about my pets,” Connie sniffed.

“You asked if she could have a lollipop afterwards, Connie.”

“She was very good for the vet!”

Marco listened to the two of them banter for a while longer, revelling in the fact that it wasn’t _him_ being picked on for a change, until he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He brought it up to his ear when he saw who it was. “Hey, Mikasa! How are you this wonderful evening, nutmeg?”

“Nutmeg? What did you swallow on the way home?” was Mikasa’s ever-charming reply.

“You’re so good to me, baby.” Marco stretched. “What’s up?”

It could only be one of two things, both of which would be sure to ruin his mood. And, sure enough…

“Is Eren with you?”

Marco frowned. “No, I thought he was with you. He didn’t say he was going anywhere. He hasn’t been here since I got back.”

“He was with me,” Mikasa replied, “but he’s- Marco, he’s bolted.”

His mood shattered. Marco sat up straight. Something felt like it was grabbing onto his chest and squeezing tight, like a python. “What do you mean, he’s bolted?” he said, his words laced with an edge Sasha knew too well. She was watching him with alarm, he could tell, even as he sat waiting for Mikasa to answer him. The frustrating part was, she wasn’t. She was quiet.

_Mikasa was never quiet with him._

“Mikasa,” Marco began, wetting his cracking lips, “what’s happened?”

There was a sharp breath on the other side of the phone. It sounded… like _crying._ Marco’s stomach plummeted. “It’s… it’s the doctor’s, they called him up,” she was saying, faint and diluted by the small, sharp breaths she was taking to fend off her emotion.

Marco’s heart stopped.

_No._

_No, no, no._

“Marco, it’s bad news.”

Everything stopped.

It only started again when Marco jumped off of the sofa and grabbed his jacket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M FUCKING SORRY.


	7. Who will give me comfort when it's cold?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's that time again, guys- update time. And whew do I have a chapter for you here *wipes brow* it's a bit bigger than normal whoops but y'all love it. Hopefully. I kinda love the first half and have a bit of a confusing thought process with the other, so we'll just see how it goes. But anywhere, here it is.  
> Marco goes to find Eren in the only place he knows where, and the already quaking world he's a part of begins to disintegrate. Lucky he has a certain grump to keep him steady whilst he tries his best for his friends. And could Marco be falling for Undercut a tad? *wiggles eyebrows* only time will tell friends
> 
> Also, sucks to have to mention this but the 'hints of Marcoeren' that I mentioned in the tags?  
> ...Yep. Just a heads up.
> 
> Enjoy friends, and please drop me a comment I live and breeeeathe feedback I swear to lawdy. 
> 
> Ma tumblr: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

Marco knew where to go.

His feet just worked on autopilot, taking the stairs two at a time and bursting out of the building just as the last bit of rain stopped falling. He grabbed Bertha and was away before anyone could put him off. He could hear Sasha yelling out of the window, from the protests fell on deaf ears. It was cold, and it was wet, but it wasn’t going to stop him- it should have, but it didn’t. Nothing as simple as bad weather was going to make him turn back. The twists and turns on the bike were normal and controlled, too much like simple routine, but Marco just ducked his head into his chest and revved harder.

He hadn’t been to this place for a while; it had been a month, he thought, since the last time. He was trying to cut down on how often he went. It didn’t do well to dwell on the past, he was told, but being _told_ to do something didn’t make it any easier. For him, it had been a month. For Eren, it would have been a year. Marco knew that it hardly mattered.

Trost dipped its toes in the provincial every now and again, and often with little success, and this was no exception. It tried to make the path Marco swung down welcoming, but the flowers that were meant to be cheery were dying, and the stone was still the same dull grey that colonised the city itself. Marco felt something catch in his throat as he neared the main gates. He hated this place. He _hated_ it. But he couldn’t just stop coming back. That wouldn’t be fair. He killed the engine.

The words ‘Trost Vale Cemetery’ loomed above him like a punch to the gut, rusting and weather-beaten from the many years of seeing various deceased come and go. It was like a train station for souls, Marco thought, if there was such a thing. It was filling up now, drowning in the bodies of the dearly departed, and it made the bile rise up Marco’s throat. _I hate this place. I hate this place. I hate this place._ He left his bike at the gate, chaining it to the nearest post that didn’t look in danger of withering away, and gave the gates a hefty push. They were never locked. The hinges squeaked too pleasantly for a cemetery as he stepped through, casting a furtive glance around. There was nothing.

Marco frowned, and shut the gate behind him gingerly. Cemeteries had a way of making him feel uncomfortable. There was a prickling at his skin, the reminder of what was to come, and it made his fists clench in his pockets. And it was so _quiet._ There was barely any sound, and not for the first time Marco thought he had gone deaf walking into the grounds. It was like there was an invisible boundary surrounding the whole place. It was like the moment anyone stepped inside, the outside world didn’t matter, didn’t exist; it was peaceful, in a depressing sort of way.

There was a reason Marco had stopped coming so frequently. That sort of feeling devoured you whole and left nothing left but what once was, and that was something he couldn’t afford to keep at the forefront of his mind. It hurt too much.

He picked his way through the graves, the original path long since overgrown, and tried his best not to trip. The light was starting to fail, the sun succumbing to the night, but Marco pressed on. He had to find Eren before it got dark. It wouldn’t be hard, though; he knew how the line of stones went, and he knew that he would just have to follow them around and he would inevitably reach him. The names began to become familiar the closer he got, and he glanced down at each in turn.

_Carla_

_Hannes_

_Mina._

He glanced up, and saw Eren.

He wasn’t difficult to spot, as ever; he had on a neon yellow jacket, bundling up against the cold in front of one of the cleaner looking graves and his eyes boring into the words carved on the stone’s polished surface. He was sat cross-legged in the grass like a child, not caring around how wet it was nor how dirty, and he was shivering. Marco hoped he hadn’t been out in all the rain; if he had, he’d be lucky not to get the worst cold known to man. Even though he shivered, even though he stared so ferociously at the lettering, his mind was a world away. Marco could tell- he’d seen it before. He swallowed painfully.

“I knew you’d find me,” Eren said before he had the chance to draw breath. His voice was faint, fragile, a ghost of what it should have been.

Marco sighed, and continued towards him. “You were always so predictable,” he joked.

Eren didn’t smile. Marco didn’t expect him to- why would he? Instead, he brought his shoulders up to his chin for warmth and shuddered. “You know,” he stated. No question.

Marco sighed. “I know.”

Eren fell silent. Marco didn’t feel like breaking it. He could see the rain seeping into Eren’s jeans, but he just sat there as unresponsive as the marble angels near them. Marco reached out and clapped a hand to his shoulder, his thumb working in small circles there in an attempt to comfort in the weakest sense, but the way Eren leaned into his touch made him realise how much it was helping, however small. “Remember when we were all kids,” Eren said, “and we thought we could take on everything?”

Marco stopped. “We were hardly kids, Eren…”

“Why did the world have to give us a reality check?” Eren asked. His eyes were still on the gravestone, unblinking. The gold one was contracted badly, the pupil a mere ink blot on the vibrant surface. Marco moved to stand behind him, and looked at the name on the grave without trying to feel the pain in his chest or the roaring in his ears.

He failed both.

The words ‘ _THOMAS WAGNER’_ were cut into the rock like a promise, and it was all he could do to stop himself from shattering right there and then. But he couldn’t; there was Eren, and he was important. He needed to be helped. He needed to be looked after. But the words still stayed there, jumping around his head and taunting him with their _Thomas Thomas Thomas…_

“Why couldn’t it have just fucking humoured us for a little while, Marco, huh? You tell me,” Eren muttered, savagely ripping up grass by the roots with shaking fingers.

Marco let out a shaky sigh of his own. He wasn’t sure he could do this. Could he do this? Could he sit here, and comfort his friend on the grave of his dead boyfriend? The simple answer was that he had to, that there was no ‘could’ about it. But that still made it hard. If he hadn’t been feeling empty before, he definitely did now. The hole was carved out afresh in his chest the longer he looked at the grave, stark and painful, and it was all he could do to _breathe_ properly.

_Focus_.

He sighed again, trying to find the right words to use. He could lie. He could say that life did things for a reason, that it made them stronger, but what good would it do? He chose, instead, to be honest. “Because life doesn’t hand out freebies,” he said, slumping into the grass beside Eren despite the raindrops clinging to each blade not being ripped out by Eren’s hands. “It’s hard, it really is, but we just… have to…”

“Get through to the other side?” Eren snorted. “What a fucking joke.”

Marco didn’t have the fight to argue. He leaned in and rested his head on Eren’s shoulder, knowing full well that his hair would bother his friend but not really caring. “Yeah,” he agreed, “what a fucking joke.”

He felt Eren’s cheek press into his hair, and the shuddering sigh of his friend as he tried to stop himself from breaking. Eren hated weakness. He hated crying, and he hated trying to control his body. He hated talking about things too, most of the time, and Marco didn’t often talk first. He knew he wasn’t ready. They sat there, getting steadily colder and wetter as the minutes ticked by, and Marco just let Eren bury closer, grab him that little tighter, try to stave off the fear that was bound to be brewing behind the surface. Marco tried not to look at the grave for too long, tried not to trace every serif of each letter like he hadn’t done it a thousand times before. He focused on Eren’s breathing, breathing that was starting to get erratic the longer they sat there, and didn’t think about the way Thomas had laughed.

He was forced to bite his lip. Hard.

Eren spoke first. “It doesn’t feel like three years,” he said. It was soft, tentative.

Marco tensed. He moved his head away to stare down at Eren. He was glaring at the stone. Nobody spoke about Thomas with him. Everyone knew that it was the one thing they weren’t allowed to speak about, the one thing that would close him off and render him incapable of anything. Everyone… except Eren. He had good reason, Marco admitted, but that didn’t make it easy. He swallowed painfully. “No… no, it doesn’t.”

“I still think he’s gonna come waltzing in and tell one of those ridiculous jokes he always told to make everyone groan.” Eren chuckled weakly. “Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Marco felt sick. He didn’t want to talk about this. He _really_ didn’t.

Eren didn’t say anything for a while. Then, he asked, “He never thought the world owed us anything, did he?”

Marco didn’t like these questions. He hated them. “N-no, he… he didn’t,” he said eventually, swallowing down the bile that threatened to come to the surface. “He said that the world was what we make of it.”

“Is that what you think, too?” Eren said. It sounded more like a demand.

“I don’t know.”

Eren huffed. “Yes, you do.”

Marco closed his eyes. This was too painful. It was carving the wounds too fresh. “What do you want me to say, Eren?” he said.

“The truth. That the world is a fucked up place and we’re just struggling our lives away.” Eren sneered at nothing in particular and scrambled to his feet. He glowered at the gravestone. “That Thomas lived a fucking fantasy, and you do too.”

Marco stared up at him, trying to ignore the angry stab in the centre of his chest. He had to remind himself that Eren was angry, he was upset, he didn’t know what he was saying… but the anger was still there. “Don’t talk about him like that,” he murmured.

“Why? What would you do about it?” Eren demanded. “You’re just as bad. Walking around like you can just make everyone better like a superhero, but you can’t! And you don’t even talk about him, how the fuck are you going to defend him? Especially since ray of fucking sunshine is six feet und-”

Marco was on his feet in an instant, one hand curled in Eren’s collar as he dragged Eren up to his level with a blaze of anger. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ , Eren,” Marco snarled.

There was a spark in Eren’s eyes that suggested that this was what he wanted all along. He wanted to see Marco snap, and it infuriated him all the more. “What are you gonna do, beat me up because I’m telling the truth? He’s dead, Marco. He _died._ Look what fucking good that optimism did him.”

“Don’t you think I fucking know that?!” Marco shook him to make his teeth rattle. “Don’t you think I think about it every single day and have to crush it down in the pit of my stomach?” He shook him again, harder. “Because I do, Eren, and it fucking hurts! But that doesn’t mean we have to sit here and wait to die, alright?!”

“But I _am!_ ” Eren all-but screamed in his face. It was a wounded, broken sound that left Marco speechless. “I am _dying_ Marco, don’t you understand that? I’m fucking _DYING_!”

And that was when Eren broke down. He didn’t cry quietly- he exploded, like fireworks over water, and it was all Marco could do to stay on his feet when he did. Eren barrelled into him like a cannonball, grabbing on so tight that Marco was sure he would have marks for days afterwards. His tattoo smarted as one of Eren’s nails got too close, but Marco couldn’t pull him away. And then the sobbing started. It came rising up from the depths of Eren’s chest like a wounded animal, yowling and feral, and then it broke over them both in a wave and Eren was _clutching_ , clawing, howling, and Marco just had to keep him close to stop his own tears from breaking out. He only figured out that he was the one trembling when the arms grabbing at him only increased their grip, trying to keep him together. _He couldn’t die,_ he found himself repeating in his head like a mantra. _He couldn’t die, he wouldn’t die, he wasn’t allowed to, it wasn’t **fair**_. “You’re not going to die,” he said, and hated how much his voice trembled as much as his body. “Eren, you’re not. I swear. I won’t let that happen.”

“You don’t have a say,” Eren managed to get out through a handful of raw sobs, tangling his fists in the cracked leather of Marco’s jacket. “You kn-know you don’t.”

“S-shut up,” Marco hissed, pressing his lips to Eren’s temple, trying to calm him down. “Please, for once, just… shut up…” He ran his hands all over Eren’s back, trying to touch every inch of him so the heat could be shared, and shut his eyes tight. Eren was right. Nothing could help. No matter what he said, it wouldn’t mean anything, and it made his temper cry out in frustration.

“Thomas was stronger than me, Marco,” Eren said, his heaving chest only doubling in its efforts to suck in air. “He was stronger, he had more to live for, and oh g-god…”

“Eren.” Marco pulled away slightly, eyes widening as he saw Eren struggling for breath. He was in a full blown panic, his pupils so small Marco could barely see them and his breath coming in short, strained wheezes. “Breathe, come on, it’s alright.”

“I s-saw what he had to go th-through,” Eren was saying, raking a shaky hand through his hair as he turned back to the grave. “He had to s-suffer and h-hurt and he still d- _died._ I c-can’t do it, Marco, I can’t, I’d rather give up now than have to do the same as T-T-T…”

Marco turned him around gently, and cupped a hand to his face. Eren’s breaths were coming short and fast, and he looked ready to run and collapse all at the same time. Marco tried to keep himself calm, and swallowed painfully at the implications of Eren’s words. “Eren, look at me,” he said, his voice as soft as he could make it. Eren didn’t. “Please, breathe,” Marco added. His other hand came up to gently touch his face, drawing his eyes up to Marco’s. He and Mikasa were the only ones allowed to touch Eren when he got this bad, and Marco was grateful for the privilege. “Count the breaths, alright? Count them. Slow them down. C’mon, follow my lead.” He inhaled deeply, and watched Eren’s lungs stutter to follow. He managed one long, shaky breath. “That’s it, that’s it, keep going,” Marco urged, breathing deeply again and pressing his forehead to Eren’s. “Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, come on.”

Eren did. He tried to control his breathing, his eyes flickering up to focus on Marco’s at every opportunity, and soon they were breathing the same air, letting it mingle in the space between them. Marco stayed where he was, knowing that the single touch was grounding Eren more than any words ever could. He cleared his throat. “Eren, you can’t give up. N-not yet. You have to fight, alright? Isn’t that what you’re good at, fighting?” Eren gulped soundlessly, like he was trying to rise to the surface, and Marco pressed on. “You’re a fighter, okay? You’re a _fighter_ , and you can do this. You might not think you can, but you’re one of the strongest people I know.”

Eren snorted weakly. “Y-you c-can’t know many s-strong people then…” His breathing was getting better. If he had enough breath to sass him he knew that his panic was gaining less ground. Marco felt a flicker of relief, however fleeting, that passed through him.

Marco offered a weak smile. “Maybe not. But I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to help.”

Eren’s eyes widened. “M-Marco, I couldn’t ask you to do tha-”

“Eren.” Marco pressed their heads together more firmly, gritting his teeth at the feeling that threatened to overwhelm him. Too late, he felt the tears scald his cheeks as they began to roll down without any plan of stopping. “E-Eren…” he tried again, his thumbs stroking his equally wet cheeks. “I’m n-not letting you do this on your own, okay? You’ve got M-Mikasa, a-and… and you’ve got me, alright? So d-don’t… don’t run away. Just…just let me…”

He didn’t get to finish. His words choked in his throat as Eren leaned just that little closer and closed the gap between them. The kiss was chaste, innocent, soft, and Marco felt something close to panic flare in his chest the moment Eren dragged his bottom lip out as he pulled away. Marco looked wide-eyed at him, his own breathing threatening to spill over, but Eren just shook his head. “It’s nothing…” he said. “I didn’t mean-”

“I know.” Marco sighed.

Eren wrapped his arms around him in a hug, nuzzling his head against the side of Marco’s jaw. “I just don’t like seeing you cry like that because of me…” he mumbled.

“You haven’t kissed me for a while,” Marco said.

“I know,” Eren gave a broken sigh. “I know.”

Marco let Eren hold him until the light failed completely and they were left blinking in the dark. Even Thomas’s grave was invisible to him now, like it had vanished out of existence, and that just made Marco hold Eren tighter. He wasn’t going to let Eren disappear, not when the shaking and breathing and sobbing into his jacket was so real. There was no way in hell he was going to let it happen. _But you said that about Thomas. You didn’t want anything to happen to him, you wanted to do anything in your power to stop it… but there was nothing._ He tried to shake away those poisonous thoughts.

Eren didn’t even have to ask if he could stay with Marco that night. When he had cried himself close to exhaustion, Marco drove back to the apartment slowly, worried that Eren might fall off by how weakly he was holding him. The rain, thankfully, hadn’t started again, and only when Marco had dismounted from Bertha and dragged Eren off the back did it begin to spit in the yellow light of the flickering street lamps. Eren walked ahead of him, choosing the stairs like he was trying to prove a point, and Marco followed behind in silence.

Sasha and Connie had gone from the living room, either back to Connie’s to coo over lizards or to their respective beds; it was getting late, after all. Batman mewled a greeting to Eren, who looked about ready to break all over again, and Marco shooed the inquisitive cat away as he closed the door behind them with a foot. “Do you want to shower or anything?” Marco asked.

Eren shook his head. “I just want to sleep,” he said, shedding his hoodie almost immediately and dropping it on the floor of the living room. Marco didn’t have the heart to chide him. He let him borrow some of his clothes, and made them both coffee as his tattoo stung nastily under his clothes. He winced. It would have to wait. When he entered his room, though, Eren was sat up with some of the ointment in one hand and a look of grim determination on his face. Marco wanted to tell him not to bother, but knew that it was probably better for Eren to have something to do. As they sipped their respective coffees and Eren worked the ointment into Marco’s wounded skin, he heard his friend mutter softly, “I like it.”

Marco tried out a smile. It didn’t feel too bitter. “You do?”

“Yeah. You’re right. A bat suits me.” He touched a spot that made Marco shiver, and put extra on just in case. “You’re getting quite a collection back here.”

“I guess I loan my emotions out to too many people,” Marco joked weakly. Eren made a soft noise of agreement as he continued, smoothing the ointment carefully over every curve and jagged edge of Ymir’s handiwork like Marco was made of glass- when, in reality, it was Eren that was in danger of shattering. Marco sighed. At least the ointment was cooling the fiery sting of the tattoo now. One less thing to worry about. He turned his head to the side, just enough to catch Eren’s eye out of the corner of his own. “Eren… what exactly did the doctor say to you?” he asked.

Eren’s odd gaze flickered away before he replied. “HIV. Early onset.” Marco’s stomach dropped. He felt winded. Hearing it made it all the more real, and Eren seemed to feel the same as his words began to waver. “G-guess I stopped the drugs too late, h-huh?”

“You don’t know it was that.”

“You’re right. It could have been one of the two hundred people I’ve fucked, for money or otherwise.” Eren’s head descended on the back of Marco’s neck, and he heard a sigh. “I fucked up, Marco. You know it. I know it. Let’s not try to sugarcoat it.”

“It doesn’t mean you deserved it, Eren.” Marco turned himself to face Eren, reaching a hand up to tangle it in his hair. “You’ll be…”

“Okay?” Eren rolled his eyes. “Marco, you and I both know I’m hardly ever okay. This is definitely not going to put me on the straight and narrow.”

Marco exhaled slowly. His hands were shaking when they came back to rest on the sides of Eren’s face. “I’ll be with you. Every step of the way, I’ll be there. If you wanna talk, or just lie here in this bed and think about nothing… I can do that for you, Eren. Please let me.” He realised that he’d inched forwards, so much so that he was practically hovering above Eren’s lap on his knees. “I just want to help you,” he said. “I want to help you, like I tried to help him.”

Eren nodded wordlessly, his fists clenched in the bed sheets in an effort to stop the tears from bursting out of him again. Marco frowned, smoothing a thumb across his skin. “You can cry if you want to, Eren,” he said. “I don’t care. You’re allowed.”

Eren let out a choking noise and lowered himself back onto the bed, one hand coming up to scrub at his eyes fiercely. “I’m _fine_ ,” he demanded, but Marco saw the tear trickle out from under his fist too late.

He shuffled closer, biting his lip. Eren needed to know that he didn’t have to be strong all the time, that he could tremble and cry and do anything if it made him feel better. That was all he wanted; he wanted Eren to feel better, to feel safe. Eren hadn’t felt safe in a long time, and it was usually when he was in the arms of some stranger. Marco could do that for him… couldn’t he? That was what prompted him to lean down and move Eren’s hands away from his face as carefully as he could. Eren blinked up at him, muttering that he didn’t need to be pitied, but he shut up immediately at the way Marco was looking at him. Marco took in a breath, and leant down to brush his lips against Eren’s gently. It wasn’t much; it was barely a kiss, in the grander scheme of things, but it was enough to get Eren to latch on and kiss him right back.

Marco tried to ignore the shock of pain that rippled through his chest at the contact, and his retaliation to his own body was just to fall in closer, let Eren kiss him for a little longer. But then he thought of sunshine and being pinned to the ground with laughter bubbling into his mouth like lemonade, and he was surfacing with a panicked gasp. _No. He couldn’t think of him_. Eren looked just as alarmed as he did, looking him up and down with the tears drying on his cheeks. “What was that for?” he asked.

Marco opened and closed his mouth a few times. He couldn’t tell him that, for a moment, he’d forgotten where he was. “H-had to return the favour,” Marco said, trying to calm the pain that seemed to spread through his chest like a virus. “Y-you were the one who kissed back,” he accused.

Eren shrugged. “Force of habit, I guess.”

Marco rolled onto his back, clutching his chest as the pain abated, slower than he would have preferred. Was it guilt? Was that what he was feeling? He couldn’t be sure. He glanced at Eren as he grabbed for his discarded shirt. “What?” he asked, pulling it on over his head. His tattoo complained a little, but not as much as it had.

Eren was staring unabashedly at him like he was some interesting piece of art hung in a gallery, and Marco was beginning to feel the prickles of consciousness. Eren just shuffled closer to him, and pecked him on the forehead. “You’re getting too damn gay, Bodt,” he said, managing to squeeze out a snigger as Marco scowled at him. “You’ll have to pretty much fuck Mikasa to make up for this.”

Marco rolled his eyes and gave Eren a shove. “Shut up, you idiot, and get some sleep,” he said, yanking the covers over them both. The room was only dipped in darkness for a matter of seconds before Eren started speaking again.

“Marco…”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” There was a pause. “You big Gaylord.”

“Charming. Get some sleep. I need to work tomorrow.”

The silence stretched out for a beat longer until Eren broke it yet again.

“I don’t think I ever told you I was sorry. For what you had to go through,” he said.

Marco paled. He was glad Eren couldn’t see the way he suddenly gripped at the bedsheets with white knuckles. “Eren, please don’t-”

“I am, though. It’s my fucking fault.” Eren shuffled closer. “I shouldn’t have introduced you to each other. It would have been so much better that way.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You know it’s true though.” Eren sniffed and nuzzled into Marco’s hair. He felt him sigh. “You know…”

“If I let you spoon me, will you stop talking?”

“…maybe.”

Marco let him, even though Eren was shorter and it wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been. The feel of someone, anyone, wrapping their arms around him and nuzzling into his hair was enough to sprout a warm feeling of belonging he hadn’t felt in a long time, however fleeting that feeling was. Because, awful as it sounded, Marco could close his eyes and imagine that it was Thomas holding him, brushing his lips through his hair, commenting that he was going to turn bohemian if he let it grow much more. Marco knew the light feeling would be crushed underfoot when he awoke. He knew that when he woke up, the grief would begin again on a cycle of hope and disappointment, hope and disappointment, over and over like a whirlpool… but it was worth it for the few hours he had of pure ignorance. Maybe, like the tattoos, Marco just thrived on pain.

* * *

He woke up the next morning to an empty bed. He sat up, raking a hand through his already messy hair as he squinted against the light filtering in through his feeble blinds. Waking up alone was normal… but then he remembered Eren. He rubbed his eyes with a yawn and sat up straighter. _Where was he? Had he bolted again?_ He groaned. _Mikasa will kill me._

He flopped back down against the bed, cringing at the squeak the springs made in protest, and let out another groan for good measure. He couldn’t have gotten far, surely. Eren wasn’t the type to bolt when he felt safe somewhere, and Marco liked to think that he was safe enough for him. He was beginning to think about calling Mikasa and telling her that Eren had managed to evade him again when he heard the buzzer, however faint, sound throughout the building. Someone wanted to be buzzed up? He threw back his covers and padded towards the living room, letting another yawn rip itself loose as he went. Maybe Eren had gone out and forgotten a key. He was surprised, then, when a small blur got to his buzzer first. It was quickly replaced by relief when he realised it was Eren. His friend pressed the ‘accept’ button out of habit and wandered back to the kitchen, a purring Batman latched onto his chest like a koala.

“You’re up,” Marco observed groggily, following him over to the island.

“I was gonna make us breakfast. But then I realised I’m not your fucking wife,” Eren said, tipping some cornflakes into a bowl.

Marco eyed the scraps of charred cinder poking out of the bin. He raised a brow. “Was another reason that you burned your first attempt?” he asked.

Eren sniffed. “That may have been a reason too. Look, just eat your motherfuckin’ cornflakes,” he said, thrusting the bowl into Marco’s chest.

Marco chuckled and slunk over to the sofa, dropping down into a heap as he peered into the bowl. His nose wrinkled. “No milk?”

“S’gone off,” Eren replied.

Marco stared down at the bowl of dry cornflakes, and thought he hadn’t seen such a depressing breakfast in a long time. “Merry Christmas to me,” he muttered.

“Shut up and eat your tasty corn.”

“Yes, _dear._ ”

He got the empty cereal box thrown at him for that remark. Eren seemed to be in a good mood, Marco thought as he watched him tentatively make coffee with Batman still hanging around his neck like a scarf. He was brighter, making jokes and smirking like he had before. Marco was glad. He knew it wouldn’t last; ignoring the problem was something Eren did best, and it would be like a ticking time bomb until he exploded in a vast well of emotion. Eren’s feelings would rise and sink like the tide. Marco had to make the most of the better times.

Finally, the knock came on the door. Marco blinked. He’d completely forgotten the faceless visitor Eren had buzzed in; he was sure that it was probably someone else in the building who’d forgotten their keys or just couldn’t be bothered to search for them. Connie had already pulled that trick with them a few times, and Marco was just used to accepting anyone who pressed the button. It wasn’t as though the building was the Ritz; if they could find something worth stealing, then congratulations to them. Eren shuffled over before Marco could even get to his feet. Marco settled back into the sofa, staring sadly at his dry cornflakes before glancing up curiously at the visitor. Eren swung the door open- and promptly threw his head back and groaned. “UGH, first I get AIDS and now _this_ asshole shows up. This is just my fucking week.”

“You don’t have AIDS, Eren!” Marco called out, panic constricting his chest at the mention. “They’re different things!”

“Point still stands,” Eren threw over his shoulder casually, before turning on the poor soul at the door. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I came to see Marco, shit for brains.”

Marco sat upright. _Jean?_

“And… wait, what do you mean you have-”

“Save the sympathy for someone who cares,” Eren hissed.

There was a pause. “Are you wearing Marco’s shirt?” Jean asked.

“Wow, fuckin’ priorities, Jesus Christ.”

Marco got up. He couldn’t handle listening to the both of them snap and snarl at each other like tethered dogs at the door. “Jean?” he questioned as he got closer.

Now he was closer, he could see that Jean was most definitely wrapped up for the weather. Everything he seemed to be wearing was made of wool, save for his battered jeans and even more battered shoes, and the scarf he’d adopted for the day was even chunkier than the one he’d been wearing before. His cheeks were bright red from the exertion of climbing up all of the stairs, and Marco had to admit it was kind of endearing to see him stood panting for breath in the middle of his doorway. The hackles Jean had thrown up began to vanish when he caught sight of Marco, and Eren gave the two of them a questioning glare. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Marco said. Had he always sounded so breathless?

Jean nodded an acknowledgement. “Sorry to… to bother you. Looks like I, er, interrupted something.”

Marco put a hand up. “You really, really didn’t.”

“Oh.” Jean chewed on his lip for a moment, looking between the two of them like Eren was going to bite him. Marco wouldn’t have put it past him, at that moment- Eren’s glare was nigh-on toxic. “I just wondered if you could, uh, watch Claudine for me later? I have a commission and the deadline’s soon and…”

Marco waved away his panic. “It’s fine, I can watch her. Is she with Christa this morning?”

Jean nodded, casting his gaze down to the floor as he shuffled his feet. “I need all the time I can get. The woman is paying me cash, up front. And lots of it. And it sorta needs to be done for me to get the money, so…” He lifted his eyes up to Marco’s. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all. Bring her to the shop, though. I’m working today.” Marco smiled.

“R-right, thanks.” Jean then glanced at Eren. He frowned. “Do you really have AIDS? Cus that shit’s not funny to joke about.”

Eren looked ready to punch him. All the colour had drained from his face, and Marco felt like reaching out and clapping a hand on his shoulder to stop him doing anything stupid. “HIV, actually,” he spat. “Part of the ‘I’m A Fucking Dead Man’ club, whoop de fuckin’ do.”

Marco frowned. “Eren, come on, you don’t know that.”

Jean’s face had dropped. There was genuine sorrow in there, Marco could see it, and his brows furrowed as he stared at Eren. “Shit… I’m so sorry, man. That fucking sucks.”

“Whatever.” Eren turned around and stormed back into the apartment. “Looks like you beat me at something else, Kirschtein: living.” He threw his hands up in the air like he wanted to strangle the atoms.

Jean looked genuinely distressed. “Eren, that’s not fair…”

Eren turned back around and fixed Jean with a toxic glare. “Fuck off, Kirschtein. What’s not fair is knowing you got something that sets your whole fuckin’ body against you. If I want you to throw me another of your pity parties I’ll be sure to let you know.” And then he was gone. Marco was pretty sure he’d stormed back into his room, and the slam of the door and squeak of bedsprings was enough to confirm it.

He sighed, and turned back to Jean. “I’d apologise for him, but he’s allowed to be angry,” he said.

Jean rubbed the back of his neck. His skin tone was returning to normal, but the slightly twisted look to his mouth was still there. “I didn’t even know he was sick…” he said. “Is that why he’s-?” he gestured to the room beyond.

“Yeah. That, and his bedsit’s got a broken lock, and there was no way in hell I was going to let him stay there.” Marco shrugged. “He’s no bother though. It’s just like having a petulant child in the house.”

“Bit like Claudine, then.”

“Yeah.”

A rare smile graced Jean’s face, and Marco felt all the more better for it. “I’ll drop her off at the shop later,” he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. “Thanks, Marco. I owe you o-”

“I’ll see you later, Jean,” Marco said, chuckling. “Remember, you don’t…”

“…owe you anything, I know.” Jean shrugged. “Just feel like I should.” For some reason, Marco had the feeling that Jean didn’t just mean that day. His features seemed to tighten up after a moment, and he cleared his throat. “So, uh, I’ll catch you later,” he said, trying to shrug something off casually. The heat was springing up to his cheeks again, and Marco wondered whether he was getting warm under all the layers. Before Marco could say anything, he gave a brief if not absent smile and backed off- and promptly lost his footing and almost fell down the stairs.

“C-careful!” Marco called out.

“M’fine, m’fine, shit.” Jean looked like he wanted to punch himself in the face. He scuttled away without so much as a goodbye, too embarrassed to do much else, and left Marco chuckling slightly in the doorway. He watched Jean leave, almost tripping down the stairs a further three times in his effort to escape without causing further embarrassment, and couldn't help but keep on chuckling. Jean had about the same amount of grace as a baby giraffe, but he meant well. That was what mattered, he guessed. He waited until he couldn't see the top of Jean's woolly hat on the stairwell and closed the door, letting out a small sigh. Jean always made him feel better, even if he was the walking epitome of cynicism in humankind. He was alright, all things considered.

_More than alright?_ his brain suggested unhelpfully.

"Shut up," he muttered to himself.

The noise of muffled sobbing could be heard coming from his room the moment the door was shut, and Marco's mood deflated almost as quickly as it had risen. _His moods will come and go like the tides_ , he reminded himself. _You just have to keep him grounded. You can do that. You've done a good job of it so far._

He couldn't bear to hear Eren crying, trying to shut himself up before he was heard by anyone, and the walk to his room turned into a half-jog to cut the amount of time Eren would be on his own for. And when he got into his room and saw Eren curled in a foetal position in the centre of his bed, the only thing he could possibly do was to join him, wrapping his arms around Eren's skinny body and pressing their bodies close together so the warmth between them could skip from one to the other. _He could be late_ , he thought as Eren turned around and planted a tiny, 'I'm not okay' kiss to the underside of his chin. Eren, of all people, was worth the scowl he would get from Marlow. And besides, it was bound to be quiet- Claudine would be the highlight of the day.

* * *

 

Marco was wrong. The shop was the busiest it had ever been, and not only did he have a crying baby to deal with, but Marlow had also done a vanishing act the hour before Claudine had arrived and was now nowhere to be found. Marco was jumping from one person to the next, dealing with a customer and then rushing back to rock Claudine's car seat in an attempt to stop her wailing. It didn't work. Thankfully, his customers were the understanding sort, and most didn't pay Claudine any notice. A few stopped and looked at her like she was the most interesting thing in the entire shop, and cooed and sighed at the way she just seemed to cry louder at the attention. He gave a few apologetic smiles at those who did buy something and flounce out like it was a personal grievance to have a child showing its displeasure around them, and stuck his tongue out at them once their backs were turned. He finally decided it was for the best to take Claudine out of her car seat and feed her one of the bottles Jean had left with them. He was sat at the desk with Claudine gulping down the milk like she was famished when Marlow walked through the door.

Marlow stopped short, and blinked at the baby in Marco's arms. "Ew," he hissed.

"Morning."

"Afternoon, ain't it?" Marlow crossed the room, spinning the old and faded giant globe they'd had propped in the corner for forever with his foot. His arms were full of boxes. He eyed Claudine like she was going to bite him as he skirted around the desk. "Got called out to a new place. Couple lived in this old rental, and they up and left when they couldn't afford the rent, left everything there. So the agency wanted me to clear it out for 'em." he set the boxes down on the floor with a grunt, and stretched to get the feeling back. Something popped in his spine as he shifted, and he glanced at Claudine again. "What's the gremlin doing here?" he asked, "and why was she being so loud?"

"How do you know she was being loud?" Marco asked.

"Marco, I wasn't here but I wasn't deaf. I heard her when I was walking back. She hasn't shut up for long."

His lip curled. "What was... wrong with her? Is she broken?"

Marco snorted. "Marlow, do you have any idea of how babies work?"

"Do they have manuals?"

"No."

"Then, obviously, no. I know how everything works so long as it has instructions, especially ones on how to turn it off." Marlow gave one of the boxes a kick towards him. "Nothing that special in there. Must've been a couple with a young kid, there's loads of shit in there to do with bouncing bundles of joy." He shuddered at the thought.

Marco laughed. "You are never going to be a father, Marlow."

"Thank fuck for that, I thought it was contagious." Marlow squinted at him. "You certainly seem to have taken to it."

Marco shook his head, grinning as Claudine gave a little burp as she drank. "Not me. Hate kids. Ugh. Nasty little vermin."

"Glad I never was one," Marlow agreed with a huff.

Marco laughed. All joking aside, he'd never once been remotely interested in having children around. It wasn't like he had a biological clock that was ticking, but it didn't matter; there was never any real pressure to have any by his family, and Marco and children didn't get on as well as people assumed they would. Marco wasn't good with kids- it was as simple as that- but Claudine? Claudine seemed different. Sure, she cried and needed her nappy changed and also liked to be clinging to him every second of the day, but it was strange how quickly he got used to it.

He turned back to his worktop, making the most of Claudine being quiet to wind up the music box he'd been working on. He'd got a new melody to fit into the box, and he was about eighty percent sure he'd got it right on the first try. Okay, maybe seventy. Sixty?

He wound it up one-handed, his shoulder trying to keep the bottle steady, and the moment the tiny dial began to strain he let go and held the bottle at a better angle. The music that came out wasn't quite as smooth as he would have liked (it would definitely need a bit of refitting) but it sounded good. For the moment. The tune was meant to be a lullaby of some sort, but Marco wasn't sure it sounded exactly as it was meant to. It was familiar, soothing, but Marco wasn’t sure it was an actual lullaby. That was what came with buying from slightly dodgy men in the market, he guessed with a sigh.

He hadn't noticed that the milk had run out until Claudine began to wriggle in his arms. "Heyy, what's up sweetie?" Marco murmured, setting the bottle down on the nearest surface. She wasn't crying, or even looking like she wanted to. She was reaching out instead, her tiny brows furrowed in concentration as she tried to break free of Marco's arms to get to- "The music box?" Marco questioned, sliding the box closer to her. Claudine's face split into a beaming smile and she gabbled happily as she tried to will it closer. The music began to get longer, more extended as the coil ran out, and her face fell. When it stopped, she even gave out a small whimper.

Marco blinked. "You like music, huh sweetie?" he asked. He reached over to wind it up again, and the minute the sweet little song came back in tinny, delicate tones through the box, Claudine was smiling again. She giggled in wonder and then looked up at Marco, her large eyes like molten stardust, and Marco felt something in his chest tighten. "I know, it's clever isn't it?" he said, picking up the box and showing it to her. "See, you wind the little key there, and then the music starts." If Claudine was capable of speech, Marco was pretty sure she was rendered speechless by the little wooden box he held close to her. Her eyes were wider than ever, and when he turned the key again to show her, the giggle she gave was so loud and so full of giddiness that he chuckled along with her.

Marlow groaned. "What the hell are you doing over there? You're gonna give me fuckin' diabetes with your laughing."

Marco laughed. "She likes music, Marlow, watch." He wound the music box up again, and Claudine gave a delighted squeal to accompany the soft melody.

"You do know that's music from a Disney film and not a lullaby, right?" Marlow said.

"Claudine likes it, and she's not crying. I think that means it doesn't matter," Marco replied, moving her to rest against his chest while he burped her. He mentally wished that she _didn't throw up all over his shirt pleasepleaseplease_ , and she seemed to hear his wish. All she did was give out a belch that was rather big for such a little body. Marco grinned and settled her back into her car seat, the music box continuing to rattle away beside her as he started to clear up his work space. Claudine was too absorbed by the music box to care.

Marlow grumbled something unintelligible and turned back to his own work, sorting through the boxes, and Marco joined him after making sure that Claudine wouldn't try to make a bid for freedom off the worktop. He didn't know. She was only little, but she was certainly strong. She could easily rock her way off the top in her car seat.

He grabbed one of the bigger boxes from Marlow and started to search through it. Wow, there really were a lot of children's things. Most of it was broken or too well-used to be of much value, but he paused when he spotted something interesting at the bottom. When he pulled it out, he let a smile spring across his face. It was a carrier, the kind that could be put over the shoulders with the baby at the front. He thought about Jean, and how he didn't seem to have anything to carry Claudine in aside from the car seat he used to bring her to the shop. Did he even have a pram? He definitely hadn't seen it anywhere. Come to think of it, he didn't know what Jean had for babies; all he'd seen were the numerous blankets he always wrapped Claudine in when he carried her, her clothes and her bottles.

Marlow looked up when Marco rose to his feet, turning the contraption this way and that like it was an intricate puzzle to solve. "Dude, what the fuck is that?" he asked.

"I think it's a sling thingy."

"A sling thingy? Technical term?" Marlow smirked.

"You know what I mean! One of those things you strap babies into to get your hands free."

Marlow's eyebrow rose. "Riiiight. So why are you holding it like it's the holy grail?"

"B-because..." Marco grinned as he turned it around the right way and fitted it over his shoulders. "Jean could... could really use this..."

"Oh no," Marlow shook his head. "You already gave a book away to him, there's no way in fresh hell you're giving away stock that's perfectly fine."

"Come on, Marlow. It might not even sell!"

"But it might."

"Think about it,” Marco said, “If he has this, he might be able to get around without Claudine getting in the way. He wouldn't have to get people to look after her if he had his hands free to paint or draw or something!" He was becoming more and more excited the more he thought about it. It would solve some of Jean's problems. It wouldn't solve them all, but it could get closer than before. He knew Jean would use it; it probably needed a bit of alteration, but it would definitely fit over his frame. It would make Claudine less of a burden. It would make Jean feel like less of a burden if he could handle her in the carrier whilst he could work, and not have to hand her over to the nearest willing person. "It would be so good for him, Marlow, please! I'll buy it from the shop, I don't care! How much would we sell it for? Be honest!"

Marlow sighed and took it off Marco's shoulders, checking it over for damage or wear and tear, brow furrowed. When he was satisfied, he thrust it back at him. "Twenty, probably," was his answer.

"Twenty?!" Marco's mouth dropped. "Marlow, that's highway robbery!"

"And this shop is barely breaking even. Twenty, final offer."

Marco glowered. "Ten."

"Marco, it's not going to wor-"

"Eleven."

"Marco, for fuck's sake..."

"Fifteen."

Marlow gave him a stinking glare. "Fine. Fifteen. I'll take it out your wages."

Marco smiled triumphantly, giving Marlow a hefty pat on the shoulder. "Thanks, Marlow!"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up and do your job, asshole." When Marco set the carrier down somewhere safe, Marlow commented, "I dunno why you're so hung up on this guy though. What is it with him? I mean, he seems like he has quite a story to tell, but..."

Marco frowned. It was easy enough explaining to himself why he bothered with Jean, but telling other people was another thing entirely. "I guess I just know when someone's hurting and needs more help than he likes to admit," he said finally, picking up another item to salvage.

"Definitely not because he's a cute blonde with a baby and a broken heart?" Marlow said.

Marco's head jerked over to him, a spike settling in his lower stomach. "Wh-what?"

The other man rolled his eyes. "Come on, Marco. I'm a sarcastic jerk, but I'm not an idiot. Jean's cute. And you only have to look at him for five minutes to know that he's had his heart ripped out and stamped on repeatedly. He tries to hide it, but it's not happening. Heartbreak ain't easy to cover up. He’s been hurt, sure, but the heartbreak’s what got him good."

Marco frowned. He hadn't noticed. Maybe his judgement had been clouded by the fact that most of his friends wore the same mask. "I... I didn't know..."

"Well, obviously. That's why you look so fucking surprised."  Marlow continued to look through the box, face unreadable. "Just... you know now. So be careful."

Marco opened his mouth to speak, but it was cut off by a small snuffling snore. He looked around to see that Claudine had fallen asleep, fists clenched tightly around her blanket and her eyes flickering under the lids as she dreamed. He smiled warmly in her direction, and Marlow scoffed. "You act like she's yours," he remarked.

Marco shrugged helplessly. "It's hard not to. She's adorable."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Marlow glanced in her direction and curled his lip. "You're not gonna convince me, no matter how cute she is."

Marco chuckled. "Fair enough. Come on, let's keep sorting through this stuff."

The amount of time spent picking through the items in the box was punctured by the crooning wail of something on the radio every now and again. Marlow had decided it was safe to put it back on again (after needing to get it fixed after the last incident) and had made sure to keep it out of the way, on a top shelf that no one could reach unless they consciously tried to. Marco's reaction before had been knee-jerk, defensive, and they both knew that Marco wouldn't have broken the radio on purpose. He just couldn't listen to that song.

They kept working for a little while longer, not talking save for when they wanted the other's approval for something, and Claudine slept on, finally quiet. Marco hadn't even noticed that the end of the day was rolling around... not until-

" _And now here's a classic that I'm sure you all know_ ," the broadcaster said, sunny and bright, and then it came on. Marco's eyes snapped open. He froze. What were the odds?

"When I find myself in times of trouble..."

* * *

 

_"...Mother Mary comes to me. Singing words of wisdom, let it beeeee." The crooning tones were soft, taunting, and Marco peeked out from behind his pillow to give the boy above him a filthy stare._

_"Thomas, shut uppp, I don't need to get up yet," he whined, sticking the pillow back over his face as the song continued, winding its way through his mind no matter how much he tried to shut it out. He used to like this song- until it became a wake up call. "My lecture's not until twelve, please turn it off."_

_The boy just laughed, his laughter light and breezy, and when Marco dropped the pillow to glare at him again he merely gave him an innocent grin. "Oh, Marco, don't make that face," Thomas laughed, leaning down to swipe his lips against his. "You need to get up. Trost is awake, and it wants to say morrrrning."_

_"I'll give it fuckin' morning," Marco grumbled, though his mood lifted a little at the kiss. He was always grouchy when he woke up, especially if he was woken up. Something he had to work on. "Just because you have to be up at a godawful time in the morning..."_

_"It's what I get for being a trainee doctor," Thomas said, and Marco caught the sound of pride in his boyfriend's voice. "And besides, I don't like waking up on my own."_

_"Mm, you'd rather taunt me with your banshee wailing."_

_"Harsh."_

_"But true."_

_Thomas laughed again and grabbed the pillow, flinging it off the bed and pinning Marco in place like it was the easiest thing in the world. His eyes looked like gold in the mornings. Marco smiled at that, and reached up to press a kiss to the tip of his chin. "I don't wail," he stated, undeterred as he traced more kisses down the side of Marco's neck. Marco tingled at the feeling, his body slowly waking up from its muggy slumber with the help of a pair of lips._

_"Okay, maybe not wailing. But still, stop singing Beatles."_

_Thomas quirked a brow down at him, pulling away from the kisses to draw out a deprived murmur of complaint from Marco. "You know, sweetie, I think you just have to..."_

_"Thomas, no."_

_"...Let it Be."_

_Marco groaned. "I hate you."_

_And then Thomas was laughing, laughing like an idiot whilst Marco figured out whether he wanted to hit him or kiss him, and Paul McCartney continued to sing the gentle melody even when their kisses got a little less innocent..._

* * *

 

Marco snapped out of it. He realised he was beginning to get coated in a cold sweat. The hole in his chest was throbbing like it was a new wound. He was gasping for air. _Make it stop make it stop I can't deal with this._ "M-Marlow, turn it off," he ordered.

Marlow was way ahead of him. He was scrambling for a stool, gabbling something about how he was sorry, that he couldn't have predicted what was on the fucking radio and he was **_trying_** , goddamnit. He wasn't quick enough.

"Marlow, turn it off right now!" Marco yelled, stumbling to his feet and trying to find anything to use as a stool to reach it.

"You're going nowhere near it, you'll break it again!" Marlow hollered back, finally plucking the stool out of a cupboard and dropping it on the floor, leaping onto it in a heartbeat.

Marco was shaking. His breaths were getting tight. It was like the tubes in his body, the ones he'd tried to get to work normally since losing Thomas, were now mutinying against him and making everything all that more difficult. "MARLOW JUST TURN THE FUCKING THING OFF."

His voice startled Claudine. He'd forgotten about her. She let out a worried cry, and he spun to her, eyes wide and everything shaking and _why was he still reacting like this it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair._

"Alright, alright, shit!" Marlow hit the off button like it was going to save a small city, practically punching the poor machine into coughing out static and finally fizzling out.

Marco clutched at his chest, wheezing for breath as he grasped the table with his free hand for support. His vision was swimming, the colours diving into one another like oil on water, and it took him a moment to realise that he was holding back tears. That accounted for the insatiable itch at the corners of his eyes. The nausea from the pills welled up in his stomach. He was still shaking. _This is getting bad. So bad. I can't go on like this._ Marco pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out heavily, eyes screwing shut despite the desperate cries of Claudine beside him. He'd scared her. He couldn't even prioritise things over his own fucking feelings. He had problems.

**_"You have problems, and I hope you realise how bad they are."_ **

He bit his lip so hard he was tasting blood. _Shut up. Now is not the time._

Only when he blinked his eyes open, breathing a little more evenly, did he notice that Jean was stood in the doorway looking like he'd seen a ghost.

Marco's stomach took a swift nose-dive. "J-Jean..." he began, but his voice was drowned out by Claudine's frantic crying. He turned to her first. She was the most important- he had just woken her, after all. "Hey, sssh, it's alright," he cooed, his voice trembling as he scooped her up from her car seat and cradled her against his chest. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't... I couldn't..."

"Marco."

He flinched at the way it was spoken. He chanced a look at Jean. The look on the other man's face was unreadable. He was still wrapped up in the same woollen gear he had been sporting that morning, but he looked a lot more comfortable now. He took a few steps forward, hesitating before he spoke again. "Come and take a walk, yeah?" The hand he threw out towards the door was perfectly steady.

Marco blinked. "Wha-"

"You heard. Put Claudine in the car seat, give her to me and come for a walk with me."

Marco didn't want to go. He didn't know how much Jean had seen of his panic. He might have seen it all, seen the way he'd lost his colour and shook and screamed at Marlow to turn off the music like a hysterical child. He didn't want judgement, and he definitely didn't want pity. But when he looked to Marlow for an excuse out of it, Marlow just shook his head. "Go. You need- you need to calm down. L-leave early, okay?"

Marco's heart sank. He had no excuse. No reason. He fumbled with the straps to fit Claudine into the car seat, relieved that her crying had stopped; the only thing she was doing was making tiny whimpering noises that broke him more than the sound of fear in her cries. When he handed her over, she quietened almost immediately, looking up at Jean as though he was her saviour in the whole big mess, but Jean didn’t even look down. He was looking directly at Marco, piercing through him, and Marco just wanted to make his excuses and leave. What he found himself doing, however, was leaving the shop with Jean and not looking back. He didn’t even throw a weak apology over his shoulder at Marlow.

_Most unlike him._

Jean didn’t talk for a while, and Marco was okay with that. They took a familiar path, skirting through the people beginning to leave their jobs with ease. The sun hadn’t started to set yet, though it looked like it was debating as it dipped behind a blushing cloud. Marco swallowed painfully and thrust a hand in his pocket, the movement oddly lulling. There was still silence. Even Claudine was quiet, her sniffles slowly devolving into the silence that suggested that the rocking motion of the car seat had sent her off to sleep again. Marco could feel the prickles of consciousness steal over him, and he tried to shake them off. He failed. Jean definitely wasn’t helping, either; he kept glancing at Marco like he was a bomb that was about to go off, and Marco tried his best not to meet the gaze. He couldn’t. What would it mean if he did? He’d have to talk about it, that was what it meant. And he wasn’t going to do that. The very thought sent a chill through his body and got his palms sweaty.

They crossed the road and passed the bars he’d once known well, still not talking, and only when they reached the river did Jean turn on his heel and stop Marco in his tracks. Marco felt a jab of realisation. Here it came. _What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you scare my niece? You have problems._ He clenched his fists, readying for the blow. He could take it.

“I can’t fucking stand Doris Day.”

Marco blinked. Wait, what? Jean was frowning at the cobbles beneath their feet, his breath escaping in a small cloud on the air. The scarf wrapped around his neck was thick enough to hide his mouth from view at that angle, and Marco wasn’t entirely sure what face he was making- not that it would give him much of a clue as to what he was talking about.

“What do you-?”

“It’s that song. That… that fucking song.” Jean snorted bitterly. “ _Que sera, sera_ … that pile of shit.”

Marco watched Jean’s free fist clench and unclench, clench and unclench until it finally came up to ruffle through his hair. The nervous tic. Marco’s eyes widened. Oh. _Oh._

“Can’t listen to it,” Jean shrugged. “Not anymore.”

Marco took a step closer, his own fists relaxing. He wasn’t prey anymore. He couldn’t help the sudden light feeling that settled itself in his stomach like a bird. Jean wasn’t going to shout, or judge. In some sense, Jean…

“Yeah,” Jean said, answering Marco’s train of thought before he had the chance to do it himself, “I get it too. S’called association, if you were wondering.”

Marco cleared his throat. “Er, h-how much did you…”

“Most of it. Just knew I had to get you out of there.” Jean shrugged again, like it was nothing, and started walking again. “And don’t worry about Claudine. She’s fine. A shock to the system probably did her a world of good.”

“JEAN.”

“I’m kidding.” He hadn’t sounded kidding. He walked closer to the railing, pausing before setting Claudine down on the floor and leaning on the cast iron with a heavy huff of effort. “Wanna talk about it? And if you do, please bear in mind that I’m a terrible fucking advice giver.”

Marco bit his lip and shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted, leaning on the railing next to him, pinning Claudine’s car seat between their feet. “What about you?” He didn’t expect a response. Jean didn’t like to talk about anything _that_ personal. Marco rubbed the back of his neck, looking out over the glass-like river. “Sorry. It’s…”

“Don’t say it’s stupid.” Jean rifled around in his pockets for something, and Marco’s intuition told him that it would be a cigarette. “If it riles someone like _you_ , it’s bound to be important.”

“Someone like me?” he inquired, peering at Jean as he found his lighter and a rather beaten up pack of cigarettes in the same pocket.

Jean nodded, pulling a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth. Marco ignored the way the bird in his stomach fluttered at that. “Yeah, someone as grounded as you,” he mumbled behind the cigarette, the stick bobbing up and down with every syllable.

Marco wanted to laugh with the irony of that. “I am hardly grounded, Jean,” he said.

“Must be a good actor, then.”

“Guess I am.”

Jean huffed and lit up, the spark of the lighter igniting the contours of his face with light for a split second before he was inhaling on the cigarette and letting out a puff of toxic smoke with a sigh. “You’re quite something, you know that Ponytail?” he said.

Marco chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you’ve said before.”

“Probably. I tend to repeat myself.” Jean took another drag. “But seriously, you’re… you’re…” Words seemed to fail him, for he just gave out a scoff and focused on a far off point out on the water. “M’still trying to figure you out, Ponytail, and it’s harder than I thought.”

Marco sighed. “You’re going to have a tough job of it. People aren’t just black and white in this city,” he said.

“Yeah, they’re coloured with bruises.”

Marco stared at him. A muscle in Jean’s jaw twitched, and that feral look was back in his eyes as he remained adamant to stare at that point in the distance, the point that Marco couldn’t even notify himself. Marco thought back to what Marlow had said in the shop: ‘ _you only have to look at him for five minutes to know that he's had his heart ripped out and stamped on repeatedly.’_ In that moment, Marco could see it. It was etched on every cell that made Jean up as he stood there, glaring at nothing, and he wondered if the song was linked to the cause of his heartbreak. He just wanted to inch closer, wrap an arm around him and pull him into his side, if only for a breadth of a second… just to sew a tiny stitch onto that heart of his.

“How’s Eren doing?” Jean asked, snapping Marco out of his thoughts.

All hints of heat trickled away from him like a tap left on too long. He let out a shudder, causing a raised eyebrow from Jean, but he pretended not to have noticed. “I’d say he was coping, but…” Marco breathed out a sigh and looked back to the river. “…he’s not.”

Jean nodded, and gave the same expression he’d worn when he’d talked with Eren that morning. “Must be hard, having to deal with him when he’s like that.”

“I don’t have to ‘deal’ with him,” Marco said. “He’s my friend. We look out for each other. Eren’s been there for me before, so it’s only fair I’m here for him now.” He ignored how much it hurt to say it. Every mention made him think back, and he would be forced to mentally poke himself, warn himself that it wouldn’t be any good, that it would only make things worse… He closed his eyes for a moment, wheezing out a sigh. He felt a little sick, all of a sudden. It was like his body was readying itself for the inevitable pill intake. _What if the alarm went off now, with Jean here? What would he say what would he do oh god-_  

“My mam.”

Marco blinked, wrong-footed. “W-what?” _Spaced out again, Bodt, get it together._

“The… the song. _Que sera_. It’s cus of my mam.” Jean glanced at him, finally, and the feral look made Marco freeze under its rawness. “You asked earlier.”

“O-oh.” Marco wet his lips. He wanted to ask why. He couldn’t.

There was a breath of silence, and then Jean asked, “Eren didn’t tell you how we met, did he?”

Marco frowned. Come to think of it, Eren hadn’t. It was unlike him; it usually would have been the first thing he would have said, either to ward Marco off or to poke fun at Jean. But he hadn’t. He’d kept quiet. Marco leaned a little closer to hear Jean better, and shook his head in answer.

Jean let out a shaky sigh. “Have to admit, I’m surprised. I thought Eren’d tell you the minute we met. The little shit has a habit of twisting the truth and making me out to be some big fucking fire-breathing dragon.” Jean blew out an especially large cloud, the smoke mingling with his own wispy breath. _Fire-breathing dragon indeed._ Marco watched it float above them, vanishing into the inky sky, and it took the entirety of the cloud to fade before Jean cleared his throat.

“Eren and I were in the same kid’s home.”

Marco felt winded. “Y-you were in-”

“Not for long.” Jean took another drag, then coughed as too much entered his lungs out of nerves. “I was only there for about six months.”

“Why?”

“Because my mam put me there.”

Marco watched as Jean took a smaller, shakier drag of his cigarette, and flicked the butt onto the floor to crush it with his shoe. Why would a mother put her child in care? Marco had been an innocent to the ways of children’s homes, but what Eren and Mikasa had told him about it made him think that it was only for orphans, or children that had been completely abandoned by their parents. Jean didn’t seem to have been _abandoned_ , exactly. He still spoke about them, however sparingly. He spoke about extended family. He spoke about how he was glad to have avoided them for so long. He raised a brow, silently asking for Jean to continue. He breathed again. Tried to focus.

“She had some problems to sort out,” he said eventually. “Too many to deal with when there was a kid around. So she carted me off. I was angry then, but I guess I don’t blame her. She put me in the kid’s home, sorted the problems out, then came back for me. Wasn’t like any of my family would take me in.” He shrugged, staring down at his shoes. “It was always gonna be a temporary measure, but I guess Eren didn’t see it like that.”

“You only knew Eren for six months?” Marco asked. He couldn’t quite comprehend it. He had met Eren at university, when he’d turned up out of the blue with a fresh face and buckets full of optimism, and Eren had already gone through a lot of things. Living in care. Being kicked out at sixteen, being taken to a halfway house with Mikasa. Fending for themselves. Eren’s life had been hard years before Marco came into the picture, and the thought of an angry, betrayed ten year old Eren made Marco’s sympathy pulse even more.

Jean nodded. “Me and him got friendly real quick. Probably cus we both hated the place and we both wanted out. I gave him his first cigarette- we got in so much shit for that, being ten an’ all. But, like I said, Mam came to get me. No one came for Eren.” He sucked in a breath like it pained him. “So he got pissed. Lashed out. We had a fight, on the doorstep. Damn bastard almost broke my nose.” His laughter was hollow, void of any real emotion, and it made Marco’s stomach twist. “He’s hated my guts ever since. And I still think of him as an arrogant, hot-headed, idiotic prick, but there we are.” Jean shuddered, out of the cold or discomfort Marco wasn’t sure. “But, prick or no prick… he doesn’t deserve this heap of shit.”

Marco let a small smile grace his face. No matter what had happened between them, he had seen the way Jean had stared at Eren as he stormed away into the bedroom shouting about Jean ‘winning’ at something else. Jean hadn’t ever wanted it to be a contest, and that was just the way the childish side of Eren coped with… what, exactly? Rejection? Yet another carpet being tugged out from under him?

Jean huffed out an apology through his nose. “You probably don’t give a shit, but… just felt like I should tell you. Eren Jaeger’s just a big fucking child who’s got lost somewhere along the line.”

Marco let out a weak chuckle. “Wow, and there’s me thinking Eren Jaeger was a mystery to us all.”

“Shocking, I know.”

“Poetic, too. You should write as well as paint.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ponytail.” Jean looked upwards now, up to the sky, and Marco followed his gaze. There weren’t so many clouds out now, and the tell-tale signs of stars were beginning to pierce through the veil like needles. There were so many, Marco mused as he stared. Jean cleared his throat. “I was right, wasn’t I? About you.”

Marco frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You help people because you’ve been hurt.”

Marco bristled, and turned away. He looked down to the car seat, where Claudine was still miraculously asleep, despite the cold. At least she was wrapped up okay. “You know that could do you more harm than good, right?” Jean pressed.

Marco’s hands formed into fists as he gripped the edge of the railings. “Can we not talk about this?” he asked. It was a weak question, but Jean must have noticed his knuckles turning white.

Marco caught the colour flush in Jean’s cheeks, but not before he heard him say, “You don’t want to end up like a nebula.” It was barely a breath on the wind, barely a whisper, but it was bizarre enough for Marco to hear.

“W-what?”

Even in the limited light, he saw the tips of Jean’s ears glow with embarrassment. His eyes widened in a gesture of horror. He hadn’t thought Marco would hear him. “N-nothing,” he muttered, mortified as he looked away.

Marco quirked an eyebrow. “No, c’mon, what is it?”

“It’s dumb,” Jean protested.

“I’m sure it’s not.”

Jean gave him a glare, but finding that he wasn’t going to win, sighed and folded his arms crossly. “N-Nebulas are made from destruction. Some of them, anyway. They appear in the wake of a supernova, a dying star, and… they harbour all these smaller stars, create them, keep them safe, but they’re predominantly nothing. Just gas and dust. And, without the stars they nurture… they aren’t anything at all. Just like any other bit of the universe.” He shrugged. “Just… wouldn’t want that to happen to you, you know? Even if I fucking hate the way you put it upon yourself to help people, it ain’t gonna change any time soon, and you just have to make sure that’s not all you are.”

“Do you think that’s all I am?”

Jean jerked upright, his eyes snapping open even larger. “I don’t know you that well,” he said stiffly. “I just… you just… no. You’re more than that. I guess you have to be, I mean… you can’t live your life for other people or else you’re not living at all.”

Marco hummed thoughtfully at that. “Well, it’s good to know that I’m like a big collection of gases, Jean.”

“F-fuck you, you know what I meant.”

Marco chuckled. “Do you know a lot about nebulae?”

Jean tensed. It was as though Marco had found a part of him that Jean had wanted to show off for so long, but now it was exposed the self-conscious feeling had taken over. He tried to shrug it off as casually as he could, but the flippancy didn’t reach his uncomfortable expression. “I like space,” he said, as though it was some big secret.

Marco smiled. “Space is pretty amazing,” he admitted, “though I don’t know much about it myself. What sort of stuff do you like about it?”

Jean seemed surprised that there wasn’t a reprimand on the end of Marco’s sentence, and Marco wondered how often he’d received a jibe or a roll of the eyes when he’d talked about it before- by the reaction Jean gave, he was more than used to it. “Y-yeah,” he breathed, then recovered. “I mean, yeah, it’s amazing.” His hands began to gesture again, frantic and often spasmodic in their movements as his voice got faster and faster the longer he spoke. “I love everything about it. But I guess I like stars the most? Just knowing that there are other galaxies out there with stars as big as our sun… it’s kinda mind-melding, you know? There’s so much out there scientists still don’t know about, and I always wonder… how can anyone _not_ find space interesting? It’s so _vast_ and unknown and…” His voice trailed off. He squinted. “You’re smiling.”

Marco shook his head, still smiling. “You just changed from liking space to loving it in a nanosecond.”

Jean frowned. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m really interested!” Marco said. He didn’t want to scare Jean off again like he had with Sylvia Plath. “I don’t know much about space, and, well… if you know so much, I’d love to hear more about it. I’ve always wanted to learn more about it.”

Jean fixed him with a look that suggested he didn’t believe him. “You’re not just fucking with me?” he said, “or humouring me?”

“Not at all! I really would love to hear some more.”

Jean stared at him for a long while. And then he started talking. And it didn’t stop. It was like before, but so much more animated, with Jean’s hands going everywhere as he talked and never once straying into his hair. Even when Marco noted that Claudine would catch a cold if they were out there much longer and they began to walk back, Jean was still talking about stars and constellations and galaxies with so much energy and life that it made Marco practically beam to see it. Jean didn’t question him again; it seemed that his first assurance was enough for him. Maybe it was coming out in one large, relieved rush, and Marco was grateful that he was at least making someone feel better.

When they reached the inevitable crossroads, Jean tried to round up his rambling notion about the constellations having moved since the ancient times and that was why they didn’t look anything like a bear or archer or hunter before he rambled off in another direction without realising that Marco had indeed left his side. Unfortunately, that meant his speech got even quicker and more excited. “But it’s amazing, right? That these people thousands of years ago looked up at the stars and saw a completely different sky to us? Well, not completely different, obviously, a few of the stars haven't changed position in millenia but-"

Marco coughed politely, and it was enough to cut Jean off. He then did something Marco didn't expect- he laughed. "Sorry, when I start I really get going. You should've stopped me earlier if I was boring you." Jean didn't look apologetic, though. He didn't look trodden down either; he looked as though Marco letting him ramble was the best thing anyone had done for him in years. It was nice to see him like that, Marco thought as Jean began to slowly shrink back into his usual, conscious self, and run a hand through his hair and fiddle with the edges of his sleeves.

"You weren't boring me, I just... need to go, so." Marco inclined his head towards the street he would have to walk down that led to his apartment block, and Jean nodded in understanding.

"That's alright, er..." Here it came again. The awkwardness was descending like a cloud over their heads, and Marco had just been getting used to life without it. "Thanks for looking after Claudine again today. I hope she wasn't too much bother."

Marco snorted. "Hardly. I think I was more trouble than her. If I'm not careful Marlow will be hiring her to do my job for me."

"He won't," Jean said immediately. "He... he might not understand, but he cares. You can tell. And you two are friends, I mean he's not that much of a dick is he?"

Marco smiled. "He has his moments."

"Don't, er, worry about what happened earlier. S'alright, I... I get it. Like I said, _Que sera, sera_ can go fuck itself as far as I'm concerned."

Marco kept his smile, but it was a little more forced. It wasn't exactly the same. Jean hated his song because it reminded him of his mother abandoning him for those long six months. For Marco, the songs just taunted the idea of a life he could have had just beyond his reach. It was frustrating because they weren't bad memories, but happy ones, and that made the pain worse. But he didn't say anything. He just nodded and smiled, and pretended everything was alright. He wouldn't tell Jean. Couldn't tell him. Couldn't. "Well, it _is_ a pretty shitty song," he conceded instead.

Jean grinned in reply, but the noise of Claudine letting out a mewl of a cry made him look down. "Looks like Princess here needs her feed. She might be up all night again, but it was worth it," he said.

Marco blinked. "Worth it...?"

"Talking to you." Jean cleared his throat then, as if his previous words hadn't supposed to have fallen out of his mouth, and brought another battered little paperback out of his back pocket. "As promised, another book for you. S'not as depressing as _The Bell Jar_ , anyway."

Marco took it. " _'The Catcher in the Rye'_?" He snorted. "You really like your classics, don't you?"

Jean sniffed. "American's my favourite. Easy to read, quick to pick up. Like Gatsby." His face fell as he thought about it. "Oh god, tell me you've read _The Great Gatsby_?"

"I've skimmed it."

"You are a terrible human being."

Marco laughed and gave Jean a playful nudge. "I'll bear that in mind next time you ask me to babysit."

"You will remain a heathen in my eyes until you've read that masterpiece of a book properly."

Marco's laughter filtered out, and he began to take a step towards home, the tell-tale prickling on the back of his neck informing him that he would be needing to take his pills soon. He was waiting for the alarm to sound and startle them both out of the weird giddiness they both seemed to be feeling. "It's nice to know that you like space, too," he said, as he took another step. It was tiny. It barely counted. _Loser_. “It explains something I wondered about you.”

Jean frowned. "Oh?"

“It’s why you keep looking up.”

Jean chuckled. “Yeah, well. Beats looking down.”

“True.” Marco couldn't help glancing down at that moment, at the path between them. But then he looked up, remembering his alarm, and smiled with a warmth he hadn't felt in a while. "Good night, Jean."

It looked like Jean wanted to say something more. If Marco had known any better, he would have thought that Jean was going to reach out a hand to him, the look in his eyes was so desperate. But then he relaxed, and the desperation was gone. "Good night, Marco," he said, his voice soft on the air as the words drifted in the smoke from his lips. Marco took two more steps before he heard, “Marco!”

He turned his head. "What is it?"

What he hadn't expected was a packet of sweets to come flying into his line of vision. He managed to catch them before they smacked him in the face, though fumbled for the packet for one terrifying second, and stared at them. _Parma Violets?_

"For Eren," Jean explained, like that made more sense. "They were his favourites, growing up. Always liked to save up for some." He shrugged. "Not exactly a peace offering, but it's the best I can do for now."

Marco turned the packet over in his hand. "Thanks," he said. "I'm sure Eren will appreciate it."

Jean scoffed. "If Eren knew they were from me he'd have a few choice words to say, and none of 'em would be 'thanks'."

Marco laughed. "Get your niece to bed, Jean. And go to sleep yourself."

He got a salute in reply, and that was it. Jean was gone, walking away into the ether of the night. Marco let himself stand there for a beat longer, watching him with that self-same warmth nestled within.

And then his alarm went off, and everything fazed back into reality.

He took the rainbow of pills dry, throwing them back with a choking cough as he walked back to his apartment, and as the cold air grew even more polar around him, he was grateful that he would have someone to share warmth with that night. He might not sleep well, and be plagued by the sickness he knew would come, but he would have someone to go back to who needed the reassurance more than he did. And that was what kept him strong, even when he got home and got latched onto by a shaking, panicky Eren. He smoothed down the chunks of hair that were stuck on end, murmured pointless nothings against his viciously hot skin, and suggested a shower.

And he knew that Jean’s words had done him more good than the pills that evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the randoms, my brain has the music box playing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JTa-g-HxfY only a lot more simpler, obviously.  
> Also isn't Jean the biggest dork he is isn't he yes yes.  
> Look forward to the next chapter everyone! *muffled 'Fairytale of New York' in the distance*


	8. I'm offering this simple phrase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alas, it is update time! *party poppers* This is a fucklong chapter I'm so sorry
> 
> But in this we see Eren and Marco's friendship getting some strain put upon it, Jean being his artistic self and giving Marco a bit of a crisis and all of Marco's friends making inappropriate comments about his thoughts on his grumpy friend. Because that's all they are... right?  
> We also see the first appearance of Armin, so gotta be excited for that. Eren certainly is *shot*
> 
> Turns a bit NSFW by the end and it is not of a jeanmarco nature, just a warning for you all trying to read this in public! Also, if you don't like the idea of marcoeren, probably a good idea to skip the last little bit. I'd prefer it if you didn't, but...there we are. :)
> 
> Thanks again for the overwhelming amount of support and comments I get for this fic, I'm having so much fun writing it and I'm so glad to see that lots of people are ruining their hearts right along with me- this chapter is a little gentler going, but it will still pack a punch or two- because every one of these guys is a ball of issues, as we all know by this point. 
> 
> My tumblr is here: www.attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Eren ate the Parma Violets.

It took him a few days, but he ate them.

Marco had told Eren they were from Jean the moment he’d come home, waving the packet in front of Eren’s nose like steak in front of a dog, and the eager light in Eren’s eyes dimmed somewhat. He scoffed and turned them away, but Marco noticed the way his eyes darted back to the sweets as he set them down on his bedside table. It was like trying to coax a deer to come to him; all he needed was time, and time was something he definitely had. After he got a phonecall from his boss demanding to know why he wasn’t coming to work, Eren had given him the honest answer- and was given indefinite leave ‘until he felt better’. The guy seemed sympathetic enough, but Eren just gave Marco a look after he hung up the phone and said, “Yeah, like I’m gonna wake up one day and miraculously not have HIV anymore.”

As Marco predicted, Eren’s moods came in waves. One moment he was fine, going about life as normal, but then he would crash until only sobs and whimpers and fear were all that was left. Marco just had to keep holding him during those times, and promising that things would get better. He knew that Eren needed more than just empty words and warm embraces, but how could he promise anything like that?

So he distracted. He talked about anything to take Eren’s mind off of things; the shop, Marlow, Sasha, sometimes even Jean if Eren didn’t glare at him with the name halfway out of his mouth, but there was one thing he never spoke about. One person they didn’t bring up. They had good reason to, and Eren knew it. The incident at the cemetery was still fresh in both of their minds, and neither wanted to return to those harsh words and curses.

Eren lasted three days before he finally caved in with the Parma Violets.

Marco walked in after another shift at the shop to see Eren stripped down to his boxers on his bed trying to cram the entire packet into his mouth before anyone caught him. Marco raised a brow. “So…”

“Don’t say a fucking word.”

“You really like Parma Violets, don’t you Eren?”

“Didn’t I tell you not to say a fucking word?”

Marco tried to bite back a smile. He failed. “Do you and the confectionary need to be alone for a moment?”

“Fuck _off_ , Marco.”

He laughed, crossing the room to flop down on the bed just out of reach of Eren, crossing his legs underneath him. “Jean really knows your Achilles heel, doesn’t he?”

Eren glowered at him, but the impact was lost on the fact that he had some of the wrapper hanging out of his mouth. Marco sniggered, and gently pulled it free. “None left for me? Rude.”

Eren stuck his nose in the air. “My present, my sweets.”

“Well, it’s lucky I bought another packet then.” Marco waved a brand new packet in his face, and he was promptly pounced upon. Marco was happy to relinquish them when Eren sat on him; it was a reasonable exchange for breathing. And when they were led, spread-eagled across Marco’s bed with the covers all kicked off a few minutes later, Eren flicked a single Parma Violet in Marco’s general direction. It landed on his nose. “Try one,” Eren ordered, rolling onto his stomach to stare him into submission.

“I bought them, and I only get one?” Marco rolled his eyes and popped it into his mouth. His nose wrinkled. “Tastes like sweet perfume,” he commented, sticking his tongue out at Eren’s sour expression.

“You just have no taste,” he huffed, cushioning his head with his hands as he lay there.

“Maybe.” Marco watched Eren inhale the rest of the packet in one fell swoop, and chuckled to himself. “So, you didn’t tell me you and Jean were in care together.”

Eren almost choked. “H-he told you that?” he spluttered, gesturing wildly for water.

Marco passed him a glass he kept on the bedside table, and nodded. “Yup. Told me all about it.” He knew he could broach the subject, but by the alarmed way Eren stared at him he really didn’t feel like it. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well.” Eren shrugged and rolled onto his stomach. “Past is in the past and all that bollocks. Jean’s still a dick though, don’t know why you put up with him.”

“He’s not that much of a dick, Eren.”

“Bullshit. He’s the biggest dick to ever dick.” Eren peeked up from his place on Marco’s pillow, letting his eyes slide shut in the bliss of a belly full of Parma Violets instead of bile. The bed was beginning to hold Eren’s scent, and as Marco leaned closer he could smell the musk on the pillow’s edge. He smiled and reached over to play with the back of Eren’s hair, the unruly mop starting to get too long for Eren’s liking. Marco thought it worked for him nonetheless.

“I dunno,” he hummed, “Maybe if you got to know him, you’d change your mind.”

Eren’s eyes snapped open. “You’re so sweet on him,” he remarked, poking his tongue out from between his teeth as Marco retracted his hand like he’d been bitten.

“I am not, Eren! Come on!” Marco laughed. His laugh was weaker than it once had been.

Unfortunately, Eren noticed. “That’s your fake laugh, don’t fool me Bodt. You want a go on the Kirschtein heirloom.”

“I do _not_ , would you stop?!”

Eren snickered at how high Marco's voice got. "Yeah, right. I bet you've thought about whether he's a screamer or not."

"EREN."

"Hey, it's a valid thought. I don't even know if he's into guys, but he looks like the type to be an utter wimp when he's being railed into, right?"

Marco threw a pillow at him. "Don't make me smother you!"

Eren smirked over at him and shuffled closer to him, giving him a half-hearted whack with the pillow in return. "You know it's true, you've definitely been thinking about it."

"I wouldn't think about Jean like that," Marco said, "seeing as he's just a friend. A really good friend." A really good friend that gives your stomach weird palpitations whenever he smiles. And when he says something nice. Or when he opens up to you. Or if he does anything, really. At least he hadn't been thinking of what Jean would be like in bed... but, now he thought about it...

He cast Eren a dark look. "Oh, you're an asshole," he said.

Eren smiled innocently. “The first stage: Denial,” he stated, before flopping back onto the bed. “Now let me sleep. I have an important day of trying not to die ahead of me."

Marco rolled his eyes. "So melodramatic." He rolled half off the bed, before standing up and stretching. He had the day off, and was planning on meeting Mikasa in town to get some things for the dreaded holiday that loomed over his head like a big, merry cloud. Ah, Christmas, the time where everyone in Trost realised just how dirt poor they really were and how much they would have to rely on others being equally broke for buying presents. Marco liked the holiday, always had; he loved the way the snow would start to fall from the sky like a gift from nature itself, and the tree in the centre of town would be decked out in all its finery. Buying his own tree was out of the question, obviously- there was no way he could afford one- but it was nice to admire the one in the centre. It was beautiful, after all, and never failed to put him in the Christmas spirit. He glanced over his shoulder at Eren and frowned. "You wanna come into town?" he asked. "Might make you feel better. You haven't left the house in a while."

"M'fine."

Marco's heart sank. "Eren, I really think it would be good for you."

"Thanks for the advice, but I'd much rather stay here and wallow in self-pity."

He sighed. Sometimes, there was no arguing with Eren. "Well, whilst I'm gone, could you at least find the Christmas decorations and start putting some up around the place? I want it to look nice and festive."

Eren groaned. "But Marco, it's not even December yet," he complained.

"It'll be December tomorrow, come on."

Eren groaned again, but warbled something that sounded remarkably like an "Alright fine," in Eren-language.

Marco could have been a little more satisfied, but he supposed it would have to do. He left the house with worry churning in his stomach. It wasn't like Eren was moping around as such; he was still in high spirits, after all, but he just never seemed to have the energy to go anywhere. Marco wanted him to come out. He wanted him to carry on living his life. But all Eren was interested in was watching life fade away out of a fogged window.

Mikasa was waiting for him under the boughs of the gigantic tree that had been put up a few days ago, her cheeks blushing pink from the cold, and when Marco jogged up to her, she gave him a smile and a peck on each cheek. "Hey," she greeted, her voice warmer than her lips. "How are things?"

He could have been honest- he usually was with her, after all- but for some reason, Marco just smiled and replied, “Fine. I’m fine.” Maybe it was the nauseous feeling left over from the morning’s three hour stint in the bathroom holding him back. Or maybe it was because he couldn’t bear bringing the thought of Eren being on his own to stew to the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t be sure.

Mikasa’s lips pursed, and her dark eyes flashed darker. Thankfully, though, all she did was shrug. "Well, alright then. Ready?”

He smiled. “As I’ll ever be.”

"Good, cus you’ll need your wits about you. If someone tries to get the last ugly Christmas jumper, hit ‘em around the head for me," Mikasa said with a grin, and interlinked their arms as they set off. The nauseous feeling took a back burner for the moment, the warmth of another human chasing it back into the depths of Marco’s stomach. He breathed a sigh of relief; he didn’t really want to expel his stomach contents in the middle of the road.

They walked around the shops, complaining about the prices and throwing pained glances at each other every time they checked a price tag until the staff shooed them out. Mikasa managed to hiss out a, “Really? Fucking REALLY?” at a cardigan that was worth two weeks’ worth of Marco’s salary, and they were both tersely asked to leave. Marco was no better; he sought out the strangest items imaginable and presented them to Mikasa at arm’s length like an explorer with an ancient artefact. He would then have to slink back to the aisle it came from when Mikasa inevitably demanded that there was no way in hell she was going to let him buy it.

From an outsider looking in, they really would have thought they were a couple, with Mikasa smacking Marco upside the head whenever he did something wrong and grabbing his hand out of habit as they wandered around the various outdoor markets. The need for physical contact was something she had to have picked up from Eren, Marco reasoned; Mikasa didn't crave contact in the same way that Eren did, but the underlying need was definitely there. And the hand holding was mainly hand- _crushing_ to stop him from wandering off.

After the eighth shop they wandered into, only to get shooed out again by messing up the displays and groaning at the prices, they gave it up as a lost cause. “Honestly, the poorer I get the more expensive things start to be,” Mikasa complained as they made their way to a coffee shop to lick their wounds. “It’s like they want to keep us poor.”

“Mmm.” The nauseous feeling was back. Marco bit down on his lip hard in an attempt to distract himself from the queasy feeling welling up inside. The sharp pain did the job for a little while, until he tasted blood.

Mikasa raised a brow at him. “You know, you’ll bite through that lip one day,” she chided, reaching up and tapping his cheek a little harder than normal. “What are you worried about?”

“M-me?” Marco tried to put on his smile in time. He failed. “N-nothing.”

“Bullshit. Talk, toughnuts, or I’ll give you something to bite your lip about.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Once they got seats and had their hands wrapped around chipped mugs, Marco started talking and Mikasa started listening. She’d known ever since they’d met up that something was bothering him, he could tell, but Mikasa also knew that there was a time and a place for heart to hearts, and mumbling into a mug or wine glass was usually the best bet.

Obviously, Eren was at the forefront of everything he had to say, and Mikasa listened with narrowed eyes as he blurted out everything. The distant nature. The bouts of manic energy that made him think that Eren was going to be alright, and then the crippling grief and hysterical clinging half an hour later. Mikasa let him talk, let him panic, let him trail off with a beaten sigh, before she offered any kind of response. Apparently, Eren had been going to see her during the day when Marco was at work, so at least he hadn’t been stuck in the apartment the entirety of the day, but she admitted that he always seemed like he was walking around in a dream world, and he was paranoid that the illusion of ‘I’m okay’ was going to be popped like an overfilled balloon around him.

“I suggested a support group, but he didn’t sound that impressed,” she said. “He went to one for addiction when he was going off the drugs and it really helped. He said it made quitting so much easier, talking about it with people going through the same thing.”

“Thomas went to a terminal support group and said it just depressed him more.” Marco’s eyes snapped open the moment the words tumbled out of his mouth. He’d never spoken about Thomas without being prompted first. Oddly, there wasn’t as much pain as he thought there would be. Something spiked in his chest, but it wasn’t pain; it was more like a stab of recognition, of remembering a name he hadn’t let himself use so casually in a while.

Mikasa looked equally surprised, but soldiered on. “N-nonetheless, I think he’s just nervous. He always was the nervous type when it came to meeting new people- shocking, I know, but true.” She sighed. “He’s still denying what he has, Marco, and you know how unhealthy that is.” There was an edge to her words that Marco recognised. That was a personal jab.

He gave her a frown over the rim of his coffee cup. “Mikasa, that’s not fair,” he said, the hurt not quite leaving his tone in time.

“What’s not fair is that you never talk about it,” she replied. “Especially now, with Eren. I don’t think he even knows you’ve got anything wrong with you.”

“It’s not exactly a part of me I want to show off, Mikasa!” Marco snapped. “I don’t deny it, I just…just…”

“Sweep it under the rug? Stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist?” She arched a brow challengingly at him. “Yeah, I noticed.”

“Mikasa, please…”

“Tell me the truth, Marco. You owe me that much.” She sighed. “Have they upped your dose?”

“Mikasa…”

“ ** _Marco._** ” The glare she sent his way told him he wouldn’t dare lie to her. He wouldn’t, but he didn’t see what good it would do telling her. All she would do was worry, and that was the one thing he didn’t want her to do. She was already tearing herself up over Eren, and she didn’t need something else to add to the burden. He wouldn’t dare let someone else worry about him; he couldn’t bear the thought of it. He bit down on his lip hard, and wasn’t surprised at the blood he still tasted at the surface. She was still glaring.

“Fine,” he said, giving in, “they have.”

“They have what?”

“Upped my dose.”

Mikasa didn’t even look smug. She slumped back in her seat and let out a breath in a low whistle. “Shit.”

“It’s only temporary!” he urged, hands threatening to drop the cup he was so tightly clinging onto. “It’s more of a precaution. B-because of the winter, you know.” He knew the staff lied when they gave him the new pills. It was part of their job, to make people feel better at any means necessary. So sometimes, they had to do it. They lied to make people believe they were in control when in reality they were floundering a hair’s-breadth above the water. Marco couldn’t admit that, though, not to anyone.

He couldn’t admit that he was scared shitless.

Mikasa didn’t have to be told _that_. Her fingers grazed the knuckles of his left hand before her entire palm covered his. “I’m here for you,” she said, in a voice so soft he didn’t recognise it as hers, “but you need to be there for yourself, too. You worry about Eren, but you’re just as bad sometimes.”

Marco sighed. It was like she knew everything; his own pain had been pushed aside to benefit Eren, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. It was trapped somewhere, milling under the surface of normality like acid, and if he let it burn too far…

“Take Eren to a support group,” Mikasa said, bringing Marco back to earth with an ungainly bump. “There’s one going on at the community centre every Thursday. Make him go. He listens to you- he just treats me like a bratty sibling who’s just trying to nag him. Once he’s pushed into one, trust me, he’ll want to go again. He just needs a nudge in the right direction.” 

Marco considered it. Support group wasn’t a _bad_ idea, and they could always give it a try. If Eren hated it, he only had to endure it for an hour of his life- he’d live. “Alright,” he agreed, nodding as he picked his coffee up for another sip, “I’ll take him.”

Mikasa smiled and reached across to plant a small kiss on his cheek in thanks. “Thank you. I really think it’ll help him.”

“Don’t mention it,” Marco said, swatting her away playfully as he took another sip of his coffee. “Just don’t expect miracles, alright?”

“You’ll find a way of getting him there.” She flicked his nose with a delicate finger and smiled at the way his cheeks started to turn pink at the attention. “As for you, I think you have a support group all your own.”

“Oh really, and what support group is that?” he asked.

“An exceedingly grumpy, defensive support group with a bouncing bundle of joy in tow.”

“J-Jean?” Marco blinked. There was the spark again, the same spark he’d felt before, like it was a relief to hear his name. “What does he have to do with anything?” he spluttered. To his annoyance, he felt a familiar heat rising up his neck. _No. Stop that. No._ It had nothing to do with the warmth of the café this time, but he would use that excuse if he had to.

Mikasa gave his hand a squeeze and returned to her cup, a self-satisfied smile blooming across her face. “You tell me,” she shrugged, still smiling, “but your smiles don’t seem as forced anymore. You’re almost like the boy I dated, Marco.”

Marco felt the blush rise still further as he took too big a gulp of coffee and scalded the back of his throat. “T-that was a long time ago,” was all he could think of saying. It was true that he was feeling better the more time he spent with Jean, but that was because Jean was different. He wasn’t like Mikasa or Sasha or Ymir or Eren; even though they were inherently out of place, they did fit in Trost, with their loud personalities and brash ways of talking. They all had their secrets, they all had their hardships, but that was what had shaped them into the moulds Trost cast for them. Jean grated against the city because he had no mould; he was cut like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit, and Marco was curious. That was all it was. Curiosity.

 _Yeah_ , his brain said snidely. _Keep telling yourself that, it might come true._

He took another measured sip of coffee and replied, “I can’t really explain Jean. I guess that must be the reason why I like hanging around him.”  

Mikasa rolled her eyes. “Alright.” He was halfway through another gulp when she commented, “It’s definitely _not_ because you’ve thought about whether he’d whimper if you went down on him?”

Marco sprayed both her and the table with coffee. He figured she deserved it.

* * *

It was a fortnight before Christmas when Marco coaxed Eren onto his bike and took off down the road spluttering out black smoke. Bertha was beginning to fall apart again, but Marco reckoned she could last a little longer if he was careful. Eren was still sticking to the apartment like glue, only venturing out to see Mikasa on occasion (though those visits were getting scarcer and scarcer) and for any food Marco and Sasha failed to stock in their cupboards (they had a lot of food but Sasha was fiercely protective and Eren was not willing to fight a pregnant woman) and Marco was beginning to despair. He didn’t mind Eren practically living with him, but having him around made him think about his own problems a lot more than usual, and that was something he definitely was not comfortable having to deal with. It might have been the reason why he was spending more and more time with Jean, though the fact that Jean was smiling with a lot more ease now might have had something to do with it, too.

He shook himself free of the thoughts and tried to remember the directions Mikasa had given him. Turn right at the first set of lights, then the second left…

“Are we there yet?” he heard Eren whine behind him as he turned off.

“Does it look like we are?”

“No.”

“Then we’re not.”

“Aw.”

One thing Eren hadn’t lost was his sense of humour. It was a good day today, and Eren hadn’t been that bad in the morning. There had been a slight blip in his mood during the beginning of the week when he’d had to go to run through what he would have to take to prevent the onset of HIV further, but he was on the waiting list for the best pills available and feeling okay, so Marco was feeling cautiously optimistic as they swung into the poorly advertised car park. The community centre was a tired, cracking building, its entire structure screaming that it had come out of the 1970s and was ready to go back where it belonged. Marco killed the engine and turned back to Eren, easing the helmet off his head with the greatest of care. When Eren stared at the building, he didn’t seem to understand what they were doing here. Then his head whipped around to stare at Marco with a mixture of betrayal and suspicion. “E-Eren…” Marco began.

“THIS ISN’T THE ZOO.”

Okay, so he hadn’t _exactly_ told Eren where they were going. And yes, he’d had to lie a little to get him to go outside. But it was all for the greater good… wasn’t it?

The way Eren was staring at him in a childish fury suggested otherwise, however.

“Why are we at the community centre?” Eren demanded, folding his arms as Marco dismounted. “You said we were going to the zoo.” The way he said it reminded Marco of a puppy who’d been duped into going to the vet’s instead of the long afternoon walk it had been promised. It was endearing, in some strange way.

Marco rolled his eyes. “Eren, did you even realise that there isn’t a zoo in Trost?”

“I thought we were going _out_ of Trost.” Eren huffed. The folded arms tightened as he shot Marco the foulest look. “You said we were going to the zoo,” he repeated sulkily.

“Look, this might be good for you. Just, stay for the hour, have a talk to everyone and you might learn to like it…”

Eren froze. “What do you mean, talk to everyo-” Something shattered in his face. Oh no. The realisation. Before Marco could stop him, Eren lunged for the keys. “We are going home!” he shouted.

“Wha- _no, we’re not!_ ” Marco dived out of the way just as Eren made a very feeble attempt to grab him from atop Bertha. Eren lost his balance and narrowly avoided falling flat onto the concrete- thankfully, Marco managed to get there first. “LET GO OF ME.”

“No!” Marco picked him up off the floor and grabbed him by the collar to frogmarch him to the community centre doors. “You are going to support group and you are going to give it a try!” His strength surprised even him; Eren had no choice but to be dragged in his wake as he strode towards the doors.

That didn’t mean that Eren didn’t try to dig his heels in at every opportunity. “I don’t want to go!” he whined, arms wind-milling frantically as Marco gave him a particularly sharp yank through the doors. “I don’t want to talk about my _feelings_ and shit! You can’t make me!”

“I can and I will!” Marco said, “Now you are going to get in there and talk about your problems!”

“Will I fuck!”

Marco didn’t have time to take in the slightly modernised foyer and peeling paint on the walls before Eren was wriggling at the end of his arm, complaining as loudly as he could about how he didn’t want to go, how he was being forced and how Marco was a fucking liar. Marco rolled his eyes. “Would you stop being such a drama queen, it won’t be that bad.”

Eren’s nose wrinkled, and his struggles increased tenfold. “You lied to meeeee.”

“It’ll be good for you,” Marco repeated, pulling him forwards again. “and if you stop making a scene I’ll take you for ice cream.” Now, what room did Mikasa say it was in? Room... three? Or was it four?

“Nooo.” Eren was digging his heels in again. “You lied about the zoo, you’re probably lying about the ice cream. You are a LIE FACTORY, Marco Bodt!”

“ _Eren.”_

“NOOOOO.”

“Oh, give me strength,” Marco muttered to any invisible deity that was watching as he hauled Eren down to the little corridor, talking over his shoulder all the while. “You were always saying how good your meetings were for your addiction, so what makes this any different?”

“Because this is full of _dying people_ , Marco!” he pouted.

“No, it’s not!” Marco despaired of him sometimes, he really did. “Eren, these sorts of groups are here to tell you that HIV isn’t a death sentence, not if you know how to keep it under control.”

“You can’t make me go inside.”

“Oh, yes I can.”

“You can’t make me you can’t make me you CAN’T MAKE ME-”

Eren was on the brink of a full-blown temper tantrum, Marco could tell, but just before he got ready to fan the flames and give it up as a lost cause, Eren’s speech cut off midstream. His eyes were fixed on something behind Marco’s shoulder, and when Marco turned around with a frown he saw that the object of Eren’s attention was a young man in deep conversation with someone Marco assumed to be a colleague. The guy looked young, probably around Marco’s age, and had shoulder length hair that was partly tied up in a bun to keep it out of harm’s way. The problem was that the majority of his hair had forced itself free and was curtaining his face a little too well for it to be a mistake. He was only wearing something simple, tight-ish jeans with a dusky lilac jumper that could have been expensive once upon a time, but he seemed the type that could wear anything and make it look good. Marco could admit that the guy was pretty cute- there was no denying it, after all- but then he realised why Eren had suddenly shut up. _Oh no. He was blonde. Eren liked blondes._

_Eren **really** liked blondes. _

“I want to climb that like a tree,” he heard his friend whisper under his breath.

Marco let out a pained noise. “Oh God.” At least Eren wasn’t trying to yank himself away anymore; instead, he was staring wide-eyed at the poor guy like he was a museum exhibit. Marco now had another problem- he had to stop the poor guy getting jumped by a horny ball of Eren Jaeger. “Come on, Eren, support group, remember?”

“He’s so beautiful,” Eren murmured. “I have to have him, Marco.”

“No.”

“BUT HE’S SO FUCKING GORGEOUS,” Eren shouted, startling the group of geriatrics coming out of their day class. “It’s not _fair,_ he should be illegal!”

“Eren, people can hear you,” Marco pleaded, giving him a shove towards room 3. “Go on, they’ll start without you.”

“I want to lick all the way up his legs,” Eren whined.

“ _EREN.”_

“Is he taking my session?” Eren was far more interested now, and Marco couldn’t help the way he put a hand on his hip and fixed him with a stern look. If the blonde was the person leading the group, Eren would spend the entire time fantasising about how to get in his pants, inevitably try to chat him up and fail miserably, and Marco would never be allowed to step foot inside the community centre again. He was already banned from three bars in the city thanks to Eren, and he didn’t want to add something non-alcoholic to the list.

He was relieved, therefore, when he peered through the dirty glass to see that there was already a clipboard-clad, _older_ person inside who looked the leaderly type. “Nope,” he said, “yours is already in there.”

“Awwwwww.” Eren threw his head back and whined. “But I wanna go with the PRETTY one!”

“Well, you’ll have to just suck it up and do it,” Marco said, giving Eren’s hair a gentle ruffle to make it look a little more deliberate instead of a ‘just rolled out of bed’ look that Eren had been perfecting in the last couple of months. “And then I’ll take you for ice cream.”

Eren pouted at him. “You promise?”

Marco chuckled. “Promise.”

“No zoo?”

“No zoo.”

“You are a monster, Bodt.”

“Go on, go play nice with the other kids!” Marco gave him another gentle nudge, and Eren gave him a filthy look before pushing the door open and walking through to the other side. Marco tried to ignore the way he heard him shout out ‘what’s up bitchesssss’ as his greeting call.

_For fuck’s sake, Eren._

Marco ran a hand through his hair with a barely concealed groan and slumped against the opposite wall, glancing down the corridor to check if there were any seats to wait on. He figured he would be there for a while. What he didn’t count on was the blonde to appear like a ghost right next to him with a chair. He jumped.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” came the apologetic voice, and whilst Marco tried to calm his racing pulse, he realised that the blonde wasn’t actually as small as he’d thought. Now they were stood next to each other, he was only a head smaller than he was. He was put together so delicately too; his wrists looked like they were made out of paper and could be snapped with a slight gust of wind. But he had a pleasant smile on his face, though his eyes were a little large with concern. “I just wondered if you wanted a seat…”

“O-oh, don’t worry, I scare too easy,” Marco lied, taking the chair offered him with a smile of thanks. “I better set up camp for the next hour. He’s gonna kill me when he gets out,” he joked, inclining his head to the shut door.

The blonde followed his gaze and pursed his lips. “Oh, I see.” He glanced back at him, the same polite smile on his face. “Not keen, was he?”

“Not exactly. But I persuaded him.”

He laughed. It was a gentle, quiet sound, like he was used to doing it so he didn’t scare anyone away. “Well, I’m no expert yet, but I’d say those sessions tend to help the reluctant ones more than the willing. Something about opening a part of them they didn’t want to believe they had before, I think.” He blinked, ridding himself of his own train of thought. “Sorry, how rude of me. My name’s Armin Arlert. I run one of the sessions here.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marco said, offering his hand to be shaken. “Marco Bodt, long-sufferer of too-nice disease.”

Armin laughed again. His handshake was gentle, though the little squeeze he added suggested he had more strength than Marco thought. “It’s good to meet you, Marco. It’s so nice to see that you’re so supportive of your partner: lots of people I’ve seen get abandoned by their significant others once the tests come through.”

Marco stopped breathing for a split second. He thought back to another time, another place, when he was waiting outside a room that stank of disinfectant and bad news, hoping against hope that what was going to come wasn’t going to be the worst case scenario… The drop in his stomach when he heard the sobbing behind the door repeated itself in the present. He swallowed painfully. “Oh, n-no, Eren’s not… we’re not…” He wetted his lips. He tried again. “He’s my friend. My… my best friend, I guess. I’ve known him for a while, anyway, and I couldn’t just leave him to deal with this on his own. He’s not as strong as he makes himself out to be.”

Armin let out a soft ‘oh’ and nodded in understanding at his words. He nodded a lot. “All the more reason for you to be admired, though,” he said. “It’s not a nice thing to go through, but sometimes it’s worse when you’re the one on the outside.”

“You can say that again,” Marco muttered. When Armin looked curious, he offered him a small smile. “What session do you teach?” he asked.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you did I?” Armin chuckled. “I run a HIV support group too. Been doing it a few months now, so I’m still a bit of a newbie, but I’m told I’m really making a difference to the people I see, so that’s all that matters.” Marco felt something flicker around inside his stomach. He couldn’t wait to tell Eren- though Armin seemed too nice to unleash the full mania of Eren on just yet. The guy deserved a little bit of peace, after all. “I work with those who find it a little harder than normal to adjust to the ins and outs of their condition, whilst Keith in there deals with the majority- he’s a bit of a sergeant major though, your friend is going to have fun with him.” He laughed. “It really is very rewarding, and I’m finding out so much while I’m doing it- I’m writing a paper on the psychological effects HIV has, along with the pills assigned to those who have it, and I’m really finding so much out! Like, I already know that one of the pills doctors usually give out is responsible for the majority of depression in sufferers and…” He flushed a little at his own enthusiasm. “S-sorry, I get carried away.”

“No, no, by all means, get carried away! You’re writing a paper?” Marco quirked an eyebrow, his smile only getting bigger. “University?”

“pHD.”Armin gave him a pleased grin at that, like he’d tried super hard to get that far.

 _Oh, dear. Eren would be as good as sunk if he knew._ “That sounds great. You want to be a doctor, then?”

“Support worker,” Armin corrected, practically beaming at the chance to talk with someone. Marco guessed he didn’t get the chance very often. “Or some sort of work in therapy. But I want to get qualified to be a doctor too, so I know a bit about the drugs I’m advising patients to take. I just want to make people more comfortable with themselves, I guess, no matter what they have going on.”

Marco smiled. He liked Armin. He was sweet, and honest, and believed in his work… _it was a shame he was likely to take out a restraining order on Eren in the next few weeks._

They chatted idly for a few more minutes before Armin had to dash off, remembering that he’d promised one of his ‘students’ some plants for her garden as a Christmas present and he’d left them in the back seat of his car. Armin did, however, give Marco his number in case ‘your friend needs more convincing about the wonders of therapy’. Marco couldn’t help laughing at that. _Oh Armin, if only you knew how much Eren would be melting right now._ Having Armin’s number might excuse him from the whole ‘lying’ thing. Marco watched Armin go, still thinking about how badly Eren would crash and burn in front of someone like him, and rested his head back against the wall.

Déjà vu came over him in an almost dizzying rush, and he was forced to scrunch his eyes up to clear his mind of the pressure behind them. It wasn’t the same. Couldn’t be the same. The last time, he hadn’t slept for two days straight. Last time, the walls were cool tiles that sent chills down his spine every time he touched them. Last time he was sat wondering if he was going to have a boyfriend by the time they were done.

The trilling of his phone startled him out of his thoughts, the crushing feeling vanishing as quickly as it came, and he wheezed out a shaky breath as he fumbled for it in his pocket. He was shaking. When had he started shaking? He picked up on the fifth ring, and only because it was-

“J-Jean?”

Okay, so he would answer it for Jean. But he might have an emergency, or something might have happened to Claudine. _Yeah right, Bodt. You just like hearing the sound of his voice. And you miss him. You great big fucking idiot._

“Hey, how’s it going? You sound like shit.”

He even sounded more confident over the phone. Marco couldn’t help but bite his lip around a smile as he thought about it. Jean barely even said ‘hello’ when they first spoke. This was… well, it was progress. And his voice didn’t shake quite so much. “I’m alright, honest, I’m just… currently stuck outside a support group.”

“You staying behind to see the teacher?”

Marco scoffed. “Jean Kirschtein, did I just hear a hint of humour from you?”

“Fuck off.”

He sniggered. “No, I took Eren to HIV support. I think he hates me now.”

“Good, he finally sees the light and realises that you’re secretly Satan. Maybe he’ll leave you alone now.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Jean.”

“Ugh, fine. I hope he’s okay and all that shit. To tell you the truth, I’m a little… bored. I haven’t been doing much lately. Been trying to get Christmas presents, but no money makes it difficult. Got a tree though.” He paused. “Am I rambling?”

Marco shook his head before realising that Jean couldn’t see it. He smiled. “No, you’re not, go on.”

“Yeah, well. It’s a shitty little thing from the market… s’more of a Christmas shrub.” Jean sighed. “But it’ll do.”

“I’m sure it looks great, Jean.”

“You haven’t seen it yet, Ponytail.”

Marco blinked. “Yet…?”

“W-well,” Jean spluttered. “S’just that… well it’s a painting day, but I can’t focus.” There was a tiny wail that cut over the slight static the phone was giving off. “And as you can hear, Princess isn’t helping. But I wondered if… well, if you weren’t busy…”

Marco blinked. Jean was inviting him over? He’d never offered that before. Marco just saw it as Jean’s personal space that he didn’t want anyone crossing into, and he was fine with that, but now he was stepping aside and letting him in? He’d been in Jean’s house before, obviously, but that hadn’t been in the right sort of circumstance; Marco had seen how uncomfortable Jean had been the entire time he and Eren were there. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“What? Don’t be a fucking idiot, of course I am. You’d keep sprog quiet, and it’d be nice to see you.” There was a pause. “J-just because we’ve both been doing stuff, and-”

“Sure.”

“Hah?”

“I said, sure, Jean, I’ll come over.” Marco smiled. “Did you not think I’d say yes?”

There was a mumble on the other end of the line that sounded an awful lot like, ‘thought you’d be too busy’ before Jean said something a little more audible. “You wanna have food here? I dunno what I have, but we could order in, I got a bit of money left over.”

“Sounds great.” Marco grinned. “I’ll get Eren to stop hating me and I’ll be over. That alright with you?”

“Yeah. Shit, yeah, that’d be great, actually.” Marco could hear a smile in Jean’s voice, and something inside him cracked. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Marco bit his lip. “Yeah. See you.”

There was a heavy pause. Jean blurted, “Bring cake!” into the receiver before hanging up in a panic.

Marco stared at his phone for a moment, before sniggering to himself. Sure, Jean wasn’t the classic adorable like Armin was, but there was definitely something endearing about the guy. It wasn’t wrong to admit that.

* * *

Eren didn’t like the support group.

He spent the entire time in the ice cream parlour Marco drove them to complaining about how the group leader was definitely not cut out for the job. “It’s ridiculous,” he spat as he ordered his cone to be piled still higher with scoops of every available flavour under the sun, “the guy used to be in the army, for crying out loud. How sheltered can you get? He treated us like we were drafted soldiers. A guy started crying. _Crying, Marco._ ”

Marco winced. “Really?”

Eren paused. “Well, he was talking about getting HIV but _still.”_

“Sounds rough. So you don’t wanna go back, then?”

“Hell no.”

“Even if I have blondie’s number?”

Eren nearly crushed the cone he had in his hand. “I could consider giving it another chance,” he replied breezily.

“You’re hopeless.”

“Your mum’s hopeless.”

“Eat your ice cream.”

Eren took a massive bite, refusing to let the brain freeze take him despite the weather outside, and shot Marco a suspicious look. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you, Bodt,” he mumbled through his mouthful.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Marco took a careful lick of his own ice cream and shuddered at the chill that ran down his spine. Ice cream really was too cold for this weather- _way_ too cold- but he couldn’t go back on another promise. It didn’t seem to affect Eren at all. “Please don’t be a creep around this guy. He’s nice. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“I don’t creep!” Eren yelped, causing one of the men behind the counter to twitch awake for a millisecond. “I flirt.”

“Which is the same as creeping.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.” Marco stuck his tongue out, and Eren looked like he wanted to shove the entirety of his ice cream down his throat.

Once they got to a table, Marco let Eren tell him about the rest of the support group; how there were a few people he kind of liked the look of and had similar pasts to him, so he could relate, but he admitted he didn’t tell them much about himself. He didn’t want any strangers knowing how fucked up his life was, and even though Marco tried to sway him, Eren was stubborn. “They don’t need to know all that shit about me,” he said, “because they know I _have_ HIV, and that should be it. That should be what’s important, cus that’s what we’re there for, right? But this guy, this leader, he kept trying to make us talk and I wanted to ask what he’d do if I didn’t wanna talk? Would he give me detention? ‘Cus he sure as fuck sounded like he would.” He took another slurp of ice cream, and noticed a woman sat in a booth opposite looking scandalised. He glared challengingly at her, and she looked away with a huff. “Fucking prim-ass lady, staring like I’m contagious,” he spat, taking another bite. Marco was pretty sure he’d never met someone who bit into ice cream quite as violently as Eren did. “Maybe it’s cus she’s homophobic. Stupid old bint.”

“Just ignore her,” Marco soothed, turning Eren’s face back to his ice cream whilst giving the woman a hard glance. “It’s not worth the breath.”

“True.” Eren sighed. “I need to go to the clinic later. Need to pick up my first prescription, joy upon joys.”

Marco frowned. “It’ll make you feel better, though.”

“Yeah…” Eren didn’t look convinced.

“I was gonna go to Jean’s later,” Marco said, trying to keep his voice as light and casual as he could without Eren twitching.

Eren didn’t twitch, but he did wrinkle his nose. “What you going to that sad sack of shit’s house for?”

“Why can’t you two stop insulting each other?” Marco sighed, exasperated.

“It’s one of life’s mysteries.”

“Hopeless.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I haven’t seen him in a few days. And he sounds a little stressed.”

Eren raised a brow as he took another lick of his ice cream. “I hear blow jobs are great for blowing off steam. Or blowing off _Jeen._ ”

Marco flushed to the tips of his ears, but couldn’t help groaning at Eren’s pathetic attempt at a pun. “His name isn’t even ‘Jeen’,” he complained, “you can’t use that. And I am not giving him a blow job.”

“Betcha haven’t given one in a while, though. Do you remember how to do it?” Eren grinned as he took the entirety of his ice cream in his mouth, refusing to break eye contact with Marco as he slowly pulled up and off with a groan of contentment. “Mmm, so _good_ …”

“Eren, cut it out.”

He didn’t cut it out. He swirled his tongue around the tip of the ice cream, still staring at Marco as he sucked down on the first scoop with an obscene groan. Marco felt his ears begin to flush, mainly due to second-hand embarrassment, but also because he was starting to _imagine it_ and that was not going to sit well at all. Eren deep-throating an ice cream was not meant to get him flustered, and yet…

Eren choking on the cone and groaning at his ice cream headache moments later caused a breath of relief to pass through him, however. He laughed, earning a dollop of cold to land on his nose by a disgruntled Eren, and wondered if teasing him about potentially inappropriate thoughts was something his friends picked up from each other.

* * *

Eren left in the opposite direction, promising he would make his own way to the clinic and Marco didn’t need to escort him everywhere like a mother hen, so there was nothing left for him to do except pick up something remotely cake-shaped and head to Jean’s. Marco chose a tiny Christmas cake in the reduced section of the nearest shop, partly because he was poor and partly because they were going to eat it all anyway so there was no point in buying anything bigger. The shop assistant shared a sympathetic look with him as she rung up the total, and Marco shuffled out of the shop with the knowledge that everyone was struggling with money in Trost.

He remembered the route to Jean’s house a little too well; Bertha coughed and spluttered through the streets and alleyways he took as shortcuts like there were tracks cut into the concrete for the wheels to slot into. He thought back to the evening he had practically carried Jean home from his drunken escapades in the river, and the sting of a promise to avoid him like the plague. Things had definitely changed, but Marco wasn’t exactly surprised. He was curious about Jean, and that was never going to let him walk away. The street Jean’s house sat was empty; there wasn’t anyone walking down it, or any teenagers loitering against streetlamps. Marco’s place was never quiet. It was impossible. There were too many people living in his block, and even more living rough close by. The silence was startling.

He parked Bertha in the nearest space, and made sure she was chained up to something to make sure there was no chance of her getting stolen (he never could be sure) and took the three steps up to Jean’s door in two bounding strides. It was only when he knocked on the door that he realised he’d forgotten Jean’s presents. _Shit._ He tried not to let it bother him- he was going to see Jean nearer the time, he was bound to.

It didn’t take long for the clatter of locks being slid back to be heard from the other side. Jean opened the door a crack at first, a single gold eye blinking at Marco as it fazed into reality. Then the door was swung open, and Jean was standing there in a paint-stained shirt and sloppy lounge pants. “Hey,” he greeted, and Marco was pleased to hear the warmth in his tone. He glanced at the bag Marco was carrying. “That cake?”

Marco nodded, a smile breaking out on his face. “Christmas cake!”

“Yessss.” Jean beckoned him in with a tilt of his head, and Marco stepped in without hesitation. “You can put it in the kitchen, I’m painting anyway, so.”

“Okay.” Marco followed him through into the main room he remembered seeing when he’d gone there last. It was just as bare as he remembered, but there were a great deal more canvases stacked on top of each other in the corners. There were so many, he thought as he looked around; Jean must have been working so hard to get them done. His noticeboard was still crammed with pictures of galaxies and planets, and Marco smiled at them as he heard Jean bustle around behind him. Sure enough, he saw the small mockery of a Christmas tree sat in the corner with tiny blue and silver baubles threatening to fall off the drooping branches. It was sweet to see the effort Jean went to, despite his nature. He turned around to see a rather old Moses basket, and a rather grumpy looking Claudine staring him down. He chuckled. “I’m sorry, am I not welcome?” he asked her.

Jean blinked, not understanding, but then he noticed Claudine’s expression. “Ah, Princess, don’t glare at company.” He sidled over to the basket and tapped her on the nose gently with a finger. Claudine’s nose wrinkled. Jean huffed and did it again. “I mean it. Behave yourself, young lady.”

It was the closest Jean had ever gotten to proper tenderness, and it made Marco’s chest a lot lighter than it should have done when the corners of Jean’s mouth twitched into a smile.

“I’ll put this in the kitchen,” he said, heading towards the small door that led into a tiny kitchen that was barely big enough for one adult to fit in, let alone two. But when he turned around, he saw that the room was accommodating exactly that amount.

Jean stood in the doorway rubbing the back of his neck. He looked a little awkward. “Er, put it anywhere there’s space… there ain’t much of it…”

Marco realised that a lot of the worktops were covered with baby-related things. There were bottles everywhere; some were in the sink, more in some sort of steriliser on the side, and even more that were half-full and looking a little sickly. Jean gave him an anxious glance, but Marco just smiled and nudged a few bottles to the side to make room. There was a baby monitor propped next to the steriliser too, though it looked a bit worse for wear and buzzed with static every now and again. Marco understood now why Jean had made sure he and Eren hadn’t gone into the kitchen before; if he wanted to keep Claudine a secret, there was no way he would be able to if anyone took a look around the room. Marco turned back to him, and noticed that Jean’s hands were plunged into his pockets and one of his knees was jiggling up and down. “She has a lot of bottles, huh?” he asked.

Jean’s shrug looked more like a nervous twitch. “Can’t keep on top of it. Babies are eating and shitting machines, s’all they ever do.”  

“Charming.”

“But true.”

They walked back into the main room and Jean made a beeline for his easel the moment he could. Marco, however, trotted over to Claudine. “How you doing, Princess?” he cooed. She gave a little squeal in reply and reached her hands out to him, a silent beg for attention that her uncle seemed to have been neglecting in favour of his paints. Marco waited for permission, but Jean was already facing his canvas, so he scooped the protesting Claudine up in his arms and curled her around against his chest. As if on cue, she let out another squeal and clenched a fistful of his shirt in her tiny hand to make sure she wasn’t going to fall, and Marco cushioned her head as he stood there.

Looking around the room, he wondered if Jean actually _had_ anything upstairs; there was a rather lumpy futon shoved to one side of the room with a haphazard number of old blankets thrown in a pile on top of it, but he wasn’t sure if Jean was using it as a sofa. People used futons as sofas. That happened. He didn’t like to think of it as a bed…

He couldn’t help the frown that sprang to his face as he looked around the place a little more. The room looked so lived-in, but in a crowded way. It was like Jean had to fit every part of his life in this single space, and it was stifling. Not to mention it was a lot warmer than outside. A bit too warm…

“The heating’s fucking up,” Jean said from behind him. “One minute it’s not on at all, the next it’s up full blast. Make the most of it, it probably won’t last long.” When Marco turned around, he saw that Jean had one paintbrush stuck behind his ear, and in dangerous proximity to his hair. The other one was being twirled between his fingertips- but he nearly dropped it when they made eye contact, and he noticed Claudine in his arms. “Y-you don’t have to pick her up, you know,” he said, setting the brush down for a moment.

Marco shrugged. “It’s alright. I like holding her. And she looked lonely.”

Jean bit his lip at that, but there was a smile hiding behind it that reassured Marco that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “She’s been pretty rowdy all day. She always calms down when she’s with you.”

Marco laughed, jigging her up and down when he heard a little grumble of discomfort come from her. “I probably bore her, I don’t think it’s any special power of mine!”

Jean shook his head, still smiling. “Nah. S’not that. I think she’s soft on you.”

“Doesn’t she calm down with you?”

Jean’s smile fell. “Not always,” he said, but then he turned back to the canvas and the conversation seemed over.

Marco walked around the room in circuits, jigging Claudine whenever she made a noise of complaint, and peering at the paintings as he went. He spotted the black horse painting from before all finished and propped underneath the window, and ran a finger down the bridge of the black stallion’s nose. It had so much life beneath the oils and canvas board that Marco could scarcely believe it. He was easily impressed by those he was close to, it was true, but the work was clearly good enough to be valued by people other than him. Jean was getting commissions, after all. “I’m glad you finished this,” he said, more to himself than to Jean.

He wasn’t expecting a response, but Jean replied, “I told you, it’s just practice.”

“I don’t care. I really like it.” Marco was still tracing the edges of the shape, smiling as Claudine relaxed in his arms. “The practice paid off.” He thought he saw Jean’s cheeks tint a darker shade of pink out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t be sure. He moved towards the futon, noticing a stack of books on the floor beside it, and shuffled Claudine a little further up so her head was resting on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to do that, but it felt more comfortable and Claudine stopped struggling quite so much, so he let it be. “Can I look at these books?” he asked, lowering himself to the futon’s level with a small groan of effort.

“Sure,” Jean said, “but they’re not that interesting. Just some universe books and a Hemingway. Haven’t got round to shelving them.”

 _Space. He should have known._ Marco picked the first one up and dragged it onto the futon to flick through whilst he had his hands full most of the time with Claudine. And that was how it was for a while- it could have been an hour, it could have been three, Marco didn’t know- as Jean’s brush strokes got a little more purposeful and focused.

It was a comfortable kind of silence that sat between them, something Marco wasn’t really used to with anyone but Jean, and it was a nice change. Claudine’s free hand began to wave around as he read, but when he glanced at her and raised a brow she giggled and hid her face in the folds of his shirt, waiting for the game to start again. For a baby who was turning four months old, she was remarkably alert. She was already trying to force her head away from his touch to look around the room and up at the ceiling- the ceiling appeared to be particularly enthralling- and her big tawny eyes would just blink at him when he tried to keep her steady. He felt Jean look at them a few times, but didn’t meet his eye; he was too busy trying to read.

The book itself was fascinating, and the more he read about space, the more he realised why Jean loved it so much. It was so far away, so out of normal thought that not many people stopped to think about the way the earth was turning, or how the moon controlled the waves. In a way, it was like an escapism that a book like _The Catcher in the Rye_ could never hope to achieve. Of course, he was getting distracted by Jean. He was getting distracted by Jean a _lot_. He tried to pay attention to his book, he really did, but he couldn’t help glancing up at Jean every now and again.

Jean had this look about him when he painted. It was like he’d opened the door to somewhere else and stepped right on through, leaving the normal world behind him, and it was a daydream-y expression he seemed to wear as he worked, eyes practically burning with the intensity in which he was staring at his canvas, visualising the finished product, making sure he had the mental picture all sorted out in his head before he even thought of painting a stroke. But he was painting, too, and quickly; his paints were being squeezed into near-oblivion as he forced fat gobbets out onto his palette only to mix them with another equally bright colour. He liked to work with purples and violets, Marco discovered, as his palette was filled with various different shades he’d managed to concoct and most likely never would again. He was mixing even more on his actual canvas, the colours colliding into each other with the thickness of the paint he dabbed onto his work. There were a few construction lines done in pencil for him to have a rough idea, but they were fast vanishing under the paint, and that only made his brows draw closer together. Despite the frown, there was something that suggested to Marco that this was a side of Jean that wasn’t seen very often. It was Jean at his most comfortable, and it wasn’t something just anyone got to see.

_So, why did he have to pretend he wasn’t watching?_

He watched him in silence for a while longer- it may have been another hour, the time wasn’t an issue for either of them- before he got to his feet and set a sleeping Claudine down in her cot. He waited until Jean’s frantic brush strokes slowed, productivity coming to a natural halt as Jean paused to view his progress. It was then that he slunk closer, lips pursing as he looked at the painting in more detail. “How’s it coming?” he asked.

Jean paused for a moment before replying. “Can’t be sure. It’s touch and go at this stage.”

Marco made a questioning noise in the back of his throat and leaned in closer. Living with Sasha and being friends with Eren meant that Marco had given up ever being able to discern how close he could get to someone without the person in question getting uncomfortable. He heard the hiss of Jean’s breath before he realised that his head was practically resting on his shoulder. And his nose was tickling Jean’s cheek. And… were those his hands on Jean’s waist? Panic flashed through him, and all traces of blood seemed to shoot straight to his face. The room felt very cold all of a sudden. “Oh g-god, I’m sorry,” he said, jerking his head away, “I don’t…” He tried a strangled laugh that died halfway out of his mouth. “I get a little, er, close for comfort when I get around people I like- I mean, people I’m more comfortable with, which is you, but not in a bad way, er…”

“Ngh, don’t, you’re warm.” One of Jean’s hands grabbed Marco’s as they strayed away from his waist and captured them there, holding them stubbornly in place as the brush went back to the canvas. “Keep ‘em there. S’warm.”

Marco blinked at him. Jean’s voice sounded distant, like he wasn’t really there at all. He was too involved in his painting to care; the awkward brashness he was used to wasn’t there at all, replaced instead by this softness. Marco put his head back on Jean’s shoulder, but every muscle felt taut. He was suddenly very aware of every part of him touching Jean, at each scrap of skin that was felt like it was burning. There were a few seconds that passed between them where nothing happened.

Then Jean froze.

Marco felt the way his spine snapped to attention, spotted the blood rushing to his ears, frowned at the way the paintbrush trembled in his grip but didn’t touch the canvas. Marco bit his lip. This wasn’t Eren, he reminded himself. This wasn’t someone who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘personal space’. This was Jean, and Jean was edgy and nervous and constantly on the defensive. He’d felt so relaxed, though…

“Sorry,” Jean bleated finally, letting go of him completely. “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t…” He gabbled, gaze still fixed on the canvas like he was scared he would turn to stone if he looked around at Marco. Looking around at him would make it real, Marco thought to himself, and felt his pulse race just that little bit faster. Jean clearly felt it too, for he leaned away from him a little with a sigh. “Fuck… fuck…” he said in a broken little voice. “I’m… I’m sorry. I forgo- _fuck-_ y-you can let go.”

Marco thought about it. He really did. He knew it was probably the best thing to do. He should have stepped away from him, laughed it off, told him it was okay like the good little straight boy he wasn’t and leave it at that. He could still feel the tension in Jean’s muscles, like he was poised to run at the slightest word, and he just… couldn’t. He just chuckled warmly and rested his head back against his shoulder. “Nah. It’s alright. I’m good,” he said in the brightest tone he could muster without sounding like he was having his balls squeezed. _Don’t stray into Good Ship Lollipop territory, Bodt, keep it together._ “Wouldn’t want you to become an ice statue, huh?”

Jean snorted a little too loudly. “I’d be the worst ice statue ever. I’d look fucking awful, g-got no muscle on me or nothing.”

Marco hummed in thought. _Oh no you don’t, don’t start thinking about him without his clothes off don’t you fucking-_ “I don’t know about that. Think you might surprise yourself.” _Shit._

Jean ducked his head down, and Marco noticed his ears flush even more. He’d gone too far. But then he felt one of Jean’s fingers, cold as icicles, poke the centre of his hands as they crossed over his middle. It was a shy, barely-there touch, but it was a touch nonetheless. It made him relax a little. He could see the way Jean’s Adam’s apple bobbed awkwardly in his throat as he swallowed, and Marco expelled a little sigh. Little did he know that it meant blowing a small ball of air against the side of Jean’s neck. Jean twitched like he’d been fired at. Oops. Probably not the best idea. “’Kay,” was all Jean managed to squeak.

And that was it. Marco started to relax again, and eventually Jean picked up his brush again. And the painting started again, and everything stayed the same. Nothing changed. Marco just moved with Jean, hyper-aware of the snuffling noises coming from Claudine’s cot, but then Jean would arch his back a little and push his hips back into Marco’s purely by accident and Marco would forget about anything except that tiny brush of friction. But then Jean would splutter apologies and move away with a cringe and a curse dying in the air above them. Marco found it strange; everything in Jean’s body language suggested he was less than happy with the arrangement, but he didn’t move. In fact, at one moment when he stepped forward (and dragged Marco with him in the process) he put a hand on Marco’s to keep himself steady. Sure, he gabbled about wanting the warmth, but the room wasn’t that cold… was it? Marco couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t exactly a good judge of temperature- he had his worthless body heat to thank for that.

After a bout of silence lasting far too long to be as comfortable as it was, Marco leaned a little closer to the canvas and squinted. “So, er… what is it, exactly?”

Jean sniggered. The movement vibrated through Marco’s arms and up to his chest, and he bit back a grin at the feeling. “Can’t you tell?” he asked.

“Not exactly, no.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait and see, then.”

He was different. He was softer, more content and far quicker to smile than the Jean he’d met at the bridge two months ago. Jean looked at Marco over his shoulder, and Marco saw the same life in his eyes that he had when he talked about space. But this time, the stars and supernovas he loved so much had fled from his words to his eyes, and it was startling. Marco didn’t mean to stare, but it was impossible not to. His grin only got wider.

Jean raised a brow. “What?”

Marco shook his head, but the grin was stuck fast. “Nothing. It’s- nothing.”

But it was something. And, when Jean went back to painting, launching into an explanation about the colour blending and how it needed to be perfect so Marco had to stop leaning quite so much, Marco felt a little somersault in his stomach.

It was a somersault he knew too well.

And it scared the living daylights out of him.

* * *

The painting was half finished by the time Jean decided to take a break and order food. Marco pulled away after an hour or two, mainly because his body was complaining that he had been standing in the same position for too long- but the acrobatics of his innards weren’t helping, either. But once Jean stood back and declared the painting done for now, Marco knew he had permission to get closer again. “Can you tell what it is?” Jean asked, folding his arms against his chest and casting Marco a slightly wary glance.

Marco wasn’t sure if it was because of the proximity of earlier or the approval he was wary of, but he tried a smile anyway and set his hands on his- _own –_ hips as he stood behind Jean. “It’s a cosmos,” he said, staring in unconcealed wonder at the half-finished work before him. The mass of purples and blues and violets now looked like clouds of nebulae, and the lighter shades were shards of solar flares breaking through the shape. “It’s amazing.”

Jean shook his head like a child. “Look harder,” he instructed, pointing the tip of his brush at it.

Marco did. He squinted. He noticed the outline; the crest of a neck, a flick of a tail, a shape that definitely was done on purpose, and his eyes narrowed further. “Space… deer?” he tried.

Jean flashed him a wide-eyed smile over his shoulder. “Space deer!” he nodded, his smile big enough to rival one of Marco’s. Marco tried to stop the acrobatics turning into a full-blown circus inside, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

Dinner was safe, as they sat far enough away that there would be no accidental touches no knee-brushing or side-nudging; but the terrible thing was, Marco started to crave that contact, that prickling feeling when they got too close. The tension that sat between them reminded him of the lessons on static electricity they had in school. The way that a flash of miniature lightning could pass through two like objects that got too close with too much friction had always fascinated him, but now he knew what it felt like to be one of those objects. He knew what it was like being thrust together to brew such a tiny storm in the space between. And he definitely had to stop thinking about the word ‘friction’ and attaching it to Jean, because he wasn’t going to survive if he did. None of these feelings were good ones.

Claudine waking up jolted him back to reality, and he was the one who offered to abandon his food to pick her up. She wouldn’t stop wailing for the first few minutes, and as Marco tried to calm her down he caught sight of Jean’s face. He looked so apologetic as he slurped down his noodles- like he, too, had been brought back to the real world and remembered that he had a degree of responsibility. He tried to cover it up with a weak grin, but Marco caught it before he had the chance. He averted his eyes, felt the tiny stomach quaking with every sob against his chest and tried to ignore everything. He ignored the acrobatic stomach, he ignored Jean’s smiles get smaller and smaller, and he definitely tried to stop the way he wanted to just stay with him- because why would Jean want him to stay?

He tried to stop looking at him for too long, in case Jean’s expression said otherwise. 

He made his excuses and left after they finished their food- before he had to take his pills- and he tried to think of Jean’s huff of acceptance as relief of finally being on his own. He got home in time to take the pills at his kitchen counter, coughing as one of them refused to go down properly without a few gulps of water as encouragement. Batman was purring around his legs, Sasha was snoring soundly in her room, and everything was as it should have been. Eren hadn’t got back yet, but a hasty text had come through whilst Marco was at Jean’s to inform him that Eren was spending some time with Mikasa again. He was probably starting to feel guilty about leaving her in the dark, and there was nothing a few puppy eyes and attempts at cooking couldn’t solve.

Going to bed cold was a strange experience, for once; he was used to the warmth of another body curling into him now, and he scolded himself for the ache that settled in his chest at the chill that shuddered through his system. Eren would probably stop over at Mikasa’s- that was what he usually did- and Marco would actually get his bed to himself. That was a good thing. He had to wean himself off company somehow, before he got too used to it.

He turned onto his back after what felt like half an hour or so of no sleep, and followed the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes. If he slid his eyes shut, he could imagine the heat. Imagine the feeling of someone burying into his neck, wrapping their arms around him, murmuring sleepy nothings that neither of them would remember in the morning. He thought back to how Mikasa would fall asleep on top of him, both of them spent and gasping for breath as their last ripples of pleasure subsided from their bodies, and how they would hold each other like that until morning, when they would wake up and complain about how gross they felt with laughs and gentle pushes. And then they would start again, covering each other in gentle kisses as Mikasa reached for his bedside cabinet and Marco just grinned like a child at Christmas.

Marco relished those moments, loved the way heat skipped from one body to the other, and the more he thought about it, the warmer he became. He tried to remember Thomas, but his brain cut him out like it was trying to do him a favour.

He turned over and let out a small whimper out of his mouth as his mind wandered over to Jean, and how he always seemed so cold. Marco wanted to wrap his entire body around him just to make sure he got warm. Would he freeze up, like he always did? Or would he arch his back, rut back into him with a barely concealed snigger and twist his head around to plant a lazy kiss on the underside of Marco’s chin…

Something falling onto his floor jerked Marco awake.

“What the-?” He squinted into the gloom, trying to make out a figure, and realised too late that it wasn’t just his brain that was awake. He peeked underneath his sheets just to check, and sure enough, he was pitching. He swore, really not wanting to have to fight off a thief with an erection, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Who’s there?” he demanded, sitting up but making sure the covers were still wrapped around his waist.

“I-I’m sorry, I just-”

Marco blinked. He leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp. It flickered into dull life, and filled in the staggering figure’s features. _Eren._ “What are you doing?” he hissed, “I thought you were staying at Mikasa’s.”

Eren wiped his nose on the back of his arm. He hiccoughed. Now the lamp was warming up, he could see the way Eren’s eyes were rimmed with red, his shivers shaking him from head to toe, and the swaying gait he had when he got nearer. Marco’s concern grew. “Eren, have you been drinking?”

Eren held up a finger. “Only a few,” he mumbled.

“Oh, Eren,” Marco said, swinging his legs out of bed and going to him. He crossed the room in two strides, cupping a hand to Eren’s face as he looked him over. “You can’t do that to yourself, you know that. Remember what happened last time.”

Eren sniffled, and shook his head. “Got my pill dose today,” he said. “Remember?”

Marco sighed. He knew what that felt like. The moment the doctors handed over those boxes of pill pots and explained you when to take them and how to, it felt like the daydream you were in had just shattered all around you. It was like finding out all over again. Eren was still shaking under his hand, eyes staring unblinkingly forward, and Marco bit his lip. “I know,” he said eventually, “And I know it’s scary, and that puts it into more perspective than ever, but you’ll be okay, alright?” Marco let his thumb skim along Eren’s skin, trying to soothe as best he could. “You’ll be alright.”

Another headshake. Another pull away. Eren wasn’t alright. He never was. “They all know, Marco.” Eren’s voice was bland, empty. “Everyone I know. The people at the bar. The guys who come in. I didn’t tell them, only the owner, but… they know. S-some guys I used to… used to hook up with, they came in and couldn’t even look me in the eye. They’re… they’re fucking _avoiding me,_ Marco. Like I’m some… some walking virus without a face.”

Marco shushed him, drawing him in closer so his fingers sunk into the hair behind his ear. “But you know better,” he said, “and I do, too.”

“Y-yeah…” Eren was quiet for a little while. He just nuzzled his face into Marco’s neck, and Marco tried not to suck in the breath he wanted to hold so badly. Even if he was definitely _not_ in the mood anymore, his dick seemed to have other ideas. He arched his hips out of harm’s way and kept massaging his fingers into Eren’s scalp, letting him calm down in his own time. What he didn’t expect was to hear Eren mumble, “I feel so ugly,” and then bury into him even further.

“Well, that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” Marco said, shushing him again as they shuffled back towards the bed. He figured it would be a more comfortable place to hold Eren- if it weren’t for the problem downstairs. “You’ll never be ugly, Eren.”

“You have to say that,” Eren replied, “you’re my friend. That’s what friends do.” He sighed, and raked his hand through his hair as they sat there on the edge of Marco’s bed staring into the dark corners of the room. “Ever since I was thirteen, I’ve had guys after me, Marco. _Thirteen_. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. I’m not stupid. I know what I am. I know why they like me. I have… a good body, a nice face and I fuck like that’s all I want from them. And now, they won’t even…” He trailed off and hid his face in his palm.

Marco let him sob until his shoulders shook, drawing large circles on his back to remind him to breathe through the pain. He knew. He knew that being physical with someone was all Eren knew how to do to get their attention. He knew that was how he’d gotten his boyfriends before, with the meagre amount of charm and his fine-tuned knowledge of sex. It made him feel like he was worth something. It was that thought that led him to lean over and kiss the back of Eren’s neck. “Oh, Eren,” he sighed.

He didn’t register exactly when Eren kissed him, but he guessed it must have been quickly after that. It took him by surprise. It was different this time around; it wasn’t the small, chaste kiss Eren usually gave because he was being overly affectionate. This was a hungry, longing kiss, and Marco felt the familiar jolt to his navel when Eren refused to let go, even when he rolled him onto his back and tried to pry his lips away. It was hungry and lustful and needy, and Marco soon realised that he wasn’t trying to pull himself away at all- instead he was sinking deeper into it, pulling Eren against him and sighing out through his nose. They had done this before, but it was verging on dangerous territory now.

When Marco felt one of Eren’s legs hook around his hip to drive him in closer he broke the kiss, gasping for breath and pulling up and away, staring down at Eren with wide eyes. Eren’s arms were around his neck, however, so he couldn’t get far. Eren dragged him back down to his level, pressing their foreheads together and shaking with the effort of simply being there. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, carding a hand through Marco’s hair just to make him shiver. “I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry, I didn’t want… I don’t… this isn’t…” He shut his eyes, a pained expression on his face as he kissed to tip of Marco’s nose, gritting his teeth against his own words. “Don’t leave me. Please, Marco, don’t leave me on this bed alone, I haven’t… I need…”

Marco sighed. He knew. This wasn’t a confession of Eren’s undying love, nor was it just driven by hormones. It was something… deeper, somehow. Eren just needed to be near someone, feel good with someone like he used to, and this was the only way he could think of to do it. _It’s wrong_ , Marco thought as he looked down at Eren, _but he needs me._ He brushed the hair out of Eren’s face, as tender as he could manage, and murmured, “I know, Eren, I know.” Eren’s tight grip on him slackened a fraction at his words, like he was relieved. “What… what do you want me to do?”

Eren looked up at him with the same wild eyes Marco had made a moment before. “Make me feel like I’m worth something,” he said, in a voice so low Marco only just managed to catch it.

So he did. He tried to calm down Eren’s frantic kisses with slow, lingering touches that would almost have worked if Eren didn’t keep rolling his hips up against his own and making him draw breath in a hiss. Eren kept the pace fast, hurried bites and nips and tugs at his hair making Marco blind to much else. He was soon hoisting up Eren’s top to run his tongue over every square inch of Eren’s body as he listened to the broken noises spilling out of Eren’s mouth like tap water. He made sure to cover every inch of visible skin in his lips and tongue, and all the while they were rolling their hips against one another, falling into a rhythm that made Eren stutter out a moan and Marco nip at his neck to stifle his own noises. _It was wrong,_ he reminded himself as Eren arched his breath and mouthed out a silent ‘oh’ that was drowned in the depths of his lungs, _it was wrong it was wrong it was wrong but it felt so good and oh **god-**_

Eren was pulling on his hair to bring him back to his lips, a silent order that Marco obeyed with a barely concealed groan as they crashed into each other again, all attempts at tenderness gone as Eren rutted against him with a shudder, his moans swallowed down Marco’s throat as he forced a hand between them to unzip his jeans. After giving himself a few teasing strokes through his underwear Eren lifted his legs up to wrap them around Marco’s waist, whimpering a soft anthem of “please”s between the ferocious kissing. Eren didn’t usually beg. Marco had to keep kissing Eren to muffle the moan he drew out at the sound.

He started to thrust against him with more urgency, his body betraying him with snaps of pleasure beating through every nerve and setting him on fire. The force of his thrusts was making Eren jolt and rock underneath him, each word high on pleading, on begging, on “oh f-f-fuck m-me”s, and Marco was sure he could have come simply by hearing that. When he was sure he was close, when he knew his orgasm was mounting hard and fast, Eren’s hand wrapped around both of their cocks and gave three short tugs, and that was when Marco lost it. He came in his underwear, and he came hard.

The weight of the situation didn’t fall onto his shoulders until Eren dropped his legs from his waist and wriggled out from underneath him, still panting for breath. Then it came. It hit like an express train, and Marco was glad he was already horizontal. His breaths were coming short, fast, and his body was still twitching as the effects of his orgasm wore off, but when he turned to look at Eren he saw the same wretched face of before. Everything sank. “I didn’t help,” he said, brows drawing together. That was all that mattered, after all.

Eren chuckled through the tears that were brimming on the surface and wrapped his arms around Marco’s neck. “I-is that all you care about? If I feel better?”

“Yes,” Marco answered immediately. “Do you?”

Eren bit his lip. The nod he gave was more of a spasm than a nod. He buried his head into Marco’s shoulder a moment later and drew a deep breath. “I sh-shouldn’t have asked you, I’m sorry,” he sobbed into his shirt. “I’m so s-sorry, I’m such a shithead, you can just go now.”

Marco blinked. “Well, I live here so I can’t go anywhere.” The grip on his neck only tightened at that. “Ow! Hey, come on now, no you’re not,” he said, running a hand along his back. It was like they were back to square one. “You don’t have to feel guilty because you enjoyed it, you know. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything, right?”

“F-fuck no,” Eren sniffled. “W-we’re both too… we couldn’t. B-but you’re my _friend,_ you didn’t wanna fuck me, for Christ’s s-sake…” He clutched at Marco tighter, like he was afraid that now that was it, that it was all or nothing and there was no way they would ever be an ‘all’. Eren had used him, and Marco was fully aware of it. Eren had used him to feel better, but at that moment Marco couldn’t care. “I can… I can sleep on the sofa,” Eren mumbled, trying to will himself to pull away from the welcome heat.

Marco shook his head, pulling him back. “No,” he said, kissing the side of Eren’s mouth as he ran a finger down the back of Eren’s neck. He could feel the other boy melt against him, and knew there wouldn’t be any more arguments now. “You are going to clean up, and I’m going to get you some water and we’re going to both stay in this bed, alright?”

Eren let a sniffle out and nodded against Marco’s chest, soothing a hand up and down his body to remind himself that Marco wasn’t going to materialise out of sight like the others. They stayed like that for a beat longer, legs tangled around each other and their twitching limbs slowly slackening, and as Eren rolled away to go to the bathroom and left Marco on his own, he was left staring at the ceiling again. The problem was, Eren had used him, sure, but if Marco was honest, he’d used Eren too. Because when they were rocking and moaning and arching together, he’d been thinking of another body underneath his; a body that was slender, pale and with tawny eyes that almost reached the colour of Eren’s left one.

He heaved out a sigh.

_Oh, he was in trouble._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder (if you haven't got it already) that Eren and Marco's relationship is extremely unhealthy and definitely not good for either of them. But alas, they are stupid boys who make so many mistakes. 
> 
> And yes, this is still a jeanmarco fic, be patient and give it time, I swear! 
> 
> Lars x


	9. I can't look at the stars...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I will give you a warning here for homophobic slurs at the beginning**
> 
> I am really sorry this is such a long chapter but a lot needed to be crammed in and yup *breathes*  
> This is the New Year's Eve chapter I promised you all! It's equal measures hilarity and angst, but I hope it's more fun than sad...though this is me who am I kidding *laughs her way into the sun* loads of things got added in as I wrote! This chapter sees the guys take on smaller and bigger hardships, drown themselves in alcohol and exposing lies that will turn things on their heads.  
> But it's a fun ride so please don't hit me.
> 
> Again, thank you so much for the support this fic is getting, I really can't believe how much positive feedback I'm getting from it <3 I just wanna thank you all so much for reading and commenting and keeping me motivated when I have my slumps! Enjoyyyy~
> 
> My tumblr ist here: www.attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

Marco knew what he should do. The thought was brewing under the surface, waiting to spill out through his mouth at every opportunity. He and Eren had to talk about what happened. The brewing was getting stronger, fuller, rising up like a tide. They had to be honest with each other, had to say that _yes_ they used one another and _yes_ it was wrong, and promise to somehow make it better. Marco wasn’t even sure that was what he wanted to do, but it was definitely what he knew to be right. That was what had to happen to put things back on track. He wasn’t Eren’s to have, and Eren wasn’t his, and that was fine. Even making things awkward between them might have helped a little.

But nothing changed.

Eren woke up the next day and it was like it never happened. There was still a weird messy half-kiss that Eren always gave when he was groggy, and a rumbling yawn that managed to escape as he butted his head into Marco’s chest, but there was nothing else. Marco wasn’t sure what he expected- an in-depth discussion about dry humping each other’s brains out probably wasn’t delicate breakfast conversation. But when he padded to the main room and poured out the coffee like he usually did, he remembered how he’d thought of someone else. How he’d thought of _Jean._ And that was when the guilt started.

Guilt was the sort of thing that ate Marco whole. Some people could take it, could bottle it up and stow it away in a tiny little corner of themselves that never saw the light of day and release a bit at a time to keep them sane. Marco’s was far more persistent, and it refused to be bottled. He raked a hand over his face and groaned, slumping against the side of the counter as he tried to blot out the memories his imagination had conjured up for him; of Jean being the one arching his back and calling out his name like a prayer with breathy moans of ‘more, more, more’ permeating through the name calling. He gritted his teeth. _Fuck. I’m not supposed to feel like this. Not again. I can’t do it again._

He reached for the kettle with a shaking hand, and by some miracle didn’t spill any of the boiling water over himself. He hadn’t let himself succumb to any sort of feelings since Thomas, and he was convinced that this man who jumped off a bridge and delved into his life wasn’t going to change that. Sure, he knew a cute guy when he saw one, and underneath all the grump Jean was handsome. It couldn’t be denied. Eren couldn’t even deny it. But every time he had so much as looked at someone else before, his chest had ached like the missing part of him from three years ago was calling out from somewhere, reminding him that he’d gone down that road and the turn it took wasn’t a pretty one.

It didn’t happen now.

His chest felt remarkably intact, despite the guilt, and he was forced to put a hand to his chest just to double check. His skin felt clammy to the touch, and he was unsure whether it was because of the activity of the night before or the cold sweat he’d broken into midway through the night. He supposed it was a combination of both. _Still, no sickness,_ he reminded himself as he heaped a spoonful of sugar into his cup. _Don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security, but you might actually be benefitting._

Sasha came out of her room yawning and clutching a hand to her stomach. It looked more bloated than usual. Had Sasha always been that big? “Morning,” she yodelled in Marco’s direction- at least, it sounded like a yodel from the way she swallowed her yawn halfway through the greeting.

Marco put on his best smile. “Morning, Sash’. Sleep alright?”

“Like a log,” she replied, and the tightness in Marco’s stomach loosened a tad. “Bump actually behaved itself for once. Though I’m craving something now.”

“Something?” Marco raised a brow. “What kind of something?”

“Manflesh.”

“Ew.”

Sasha batted him away and started sniffing out her craving in the cupboards. Marco didn’t try to stop her from going in his; he knew better than to try to sway her from her food foraging mission. Instead, he hopped up on the small island, legs dangling almost to the floor as he asked, “Got much planned for Christmas?”

“Oh, yeah, tons.” Sasha’s voice was laced with sarcasm as she continued her search. “Seeing the folks, you know, wandering in with a big belly and _not_ going ‘SYKE’ will probably be enough to kill ‘em. I live in hope.”

Marco laughed. “Aw, you don’t mean that.”

“Aw, Marco, I really do.”

He was halfway through another laugh when Eren walked in. Marco straightened up, cupped his hands around his coffee mug, and gulped back the words he wanted to say.

_Let’s talk about this._

_You’re not right and neither am I and that does not mean we should fuck each other._

_I really needed it and thank you for being there for me when I did._

But none of them came out. He just looked back down at his mug, and muttered, “there’s hot water in the kettle. Didn’t know if you wanted anything.”

He could have kicked himself.

“Thanks, I’m fucking gasping.” Eren trotted over to the kettle, started making himself a sort of flavoured green tea he found in Sasha’s cupboard, and that was it. Back to normal. Like it was nothing.

Marco hated how relieved he felt at the lack of weight in his chest.

“Hey guys,” Sasha said as she straightened up, “it’s Christmas eve eve today and we still don’t have all our presents.”

“Speak for yourself,” Eren muttered, picking up their often malnourished biscuit tin and cramming a slightly soft ginger-nut into his mouth, “I got all mine.”

“What did you buy us all, pet rocks?”

“Fu’ yo’,” was all he got out through a mouthful of crumbs.

Sasha snorted, and patted Marco’s knee to get his attention. “What about you? Got everything?”

Marco shook his head with a helpless smile. “Not a chance. I’m not going shopping with you now, it’ll be like a battlefield out there.”

Sasha pouted. “But I am with child and in spirit of Christmas I should be accompanied at all times by two handsome boys,” she whined.

“Flattery won’t work,” Eren snorted. “Besides, why don’t you ask Connie? You two seem pretty close nowadays.”

To Marco’s amusement, there was a rise of colour in Sasha’s cheeks. “Don’t be stupid, Eren!” she snapped at him, snatching an apple off the side and nearly squeezing it to death in her grip. “Connie and I are just friends.”

Marco winced. He knew a mood swing when he saw one, and he did not want to get on the wrong side of this particular one. Sasha hadn’t had one in a while, so when the emotions got too much they all tended to explode out at once that really wasn’t pretty. Marco made a habit of never being around, or when he was, making sure Sasha got everything she wanted to stop her hitting him or crying in his face. He wasn’t sure which one he liked least.

Eren didn’t know that- he hadn’t lived with her long enough to know it. He just rolled his eyes and sniggered as he filled up his coffee mug. “Yeah, whatever.”

Before Marco could warn him, Sasha was on Eren in a fury, one hand curled into his shirt and another poised above her head. “We’re. _Just. **Friends**_ ,” she hissed in a voice so low and dangerous it made Marco sidle away from his place on the island.

Eren blinked at her. Marco waited for him to apologise, or at least step away from her. But no- this was Eren, after all. He just gave her a smug grin and replied, “So is that why I heard you sneaking back into the house past midnight last night?”

“He has a TV, Eren, for God’s sake!” Sasha gave him a shove, but let him go. The relief was short-lived, however, as to Marco’s horror tears were starting to form at the corners of her eyes. “I l-like TV… I m-miss TV… we don’t h-have one…we had to sell it…” She sniffed loudly, and Marco saw Eren’s face fall. “Y-y-you…” She scrubbed at her eyes viciously, to no avail. Eren tried to get closer to pat her on the head or do something that would calm her down, but instead got the words, “YOU ARE SUCH AN **_ARSE_** EREN JAEGER,” half-screeched at him before Sasha broke down.

That was why, out of pure guilt, Marco and Eren went with Sasha on her shopping trip. Eren couldn’t have looked more unhappy to be there if he tried as she bustled through the crowds shouting about being a lady with a baby, and Marco just trailed behind. Sasha continued to chirp merrily over her shoulder at them as she walked about this, that and the other, and though Eren merely grunted replies Marco could see him warming a little under the attention. When they were finally allowed to take a breather when Sasha darted into a mother and baby-type establishment, Eren slumped against the side of the cheerful paintwork with a grumble and waited for Marco to join him. “Stupid fat woman making me feel sorry for her,” he muttered.

Marco chuckled. “Don’t ever mess with the wrath of a pregnant woman, trust me. Sasha’s a fiend when she gets going.”

“Women are fucking insane,” Eren muttered. “How can you deal with that?”

Marco shrugged. “You see past the crazy. Guys are just as bad- sometimes, they’re worse.”

“Well, guys don’t get pregnant.”

“Eh, most of ‘em.” Marco leant back against the wall of the building and let out a ‘whoosh’ of breath. “Still, I’ve dealt with worse from Sasha.”

Eren cringed. “Jesus. You really are a saint.”

A silence settled around them. It wasn’t charged like it should have been between people who had been trying to kiss the breath out of each other the night before, but it was definitely heavy with something. It was a something Marco couldn’t pinpoint, and it was unnerving him beyond belief. He chanced a glance at Eren, and saw that he was being stared at. _Shit._

Eren took in a breath before he spoke. “Stop thinking about it,” he said.

Marco bristled. “I’m not thinking about it,” he retaliated.

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are no-” Marco huffed. “Look, I just want to know you’re okay. That’s all.”

Eren eyed him for a few moments, unconvinced, until he shrugged and took something out of his pocket. “Took my first set of pills this morning, so I guess we’ll see.” He brought a cigarette out of the packet and perched it between his lips. “Can’t imagine I’ll keel over straight away, but there’s always the chance.”

“Don’t joke about that sort of thing.” Marco frowned. “Are you gonna go back to support group?”

Eren snorted. “Wouldn’t piss on it if it was on fire.”

“What about Armin?”

Eren blinked. “His name’s Armin? That’s… that’s a nice name…” He shook himself. “Okay, maybe I’ll go again. Just once more. Just to shut you up, and get the chance to see tall, lanky and hot as fuck.”

“That’s the spirit.” Marco gently plucked the cigarette from Eren’s mouth before he had the chance to light up, flinging it over his shoulder and into the dirt. “But I don’t think _that’s_ gonna help, do you?”

Eren glowered at him, but didn’t get the chance to retort. The reason walked around the corner with his hands forced into his pockets as deep as they could go and a sour expression on his face. He had the usual faded hoodie on, the beanie still crammed on his head and trying to drag the last remaining strands of ash blonde hair into its midst, but the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose were new additions. Marco hadn’t known Jean wore glasses. If he focused continuously on paintings all day, it wasn’t hard to see why. The expression he was wearing changed when he caught sight of Marco. There was hope mixed in with the recognition, and Marco felt a jolt when he changed direction. _Had Jean always looked like such a lonely boy when he was on his own?_ Marco bit back the gulp he wanted to make, and kicked off the wall to walk over. “Hey, Jean!” he said, covering up the flickers in his stomach with a smile.

Jean blinked at him, like he was surprised to be addressed in public in such a friendly manner, but Marco was used to it by now. He couldn’t help the stab of sympathy he always felt for him- it wasn’t so painful anymore, at least. “Hey, Marco,” Jean replied, not quite managing a smile despite the feeling being there. He looked tired. Maybe Claudine hadn’t slept well. Or maybe Jean hadn’t, too lost in his own thoughts about paintings and deer and arching his back into the welcoming warmth of Marco’s- _no, brain, stop it._ “Why are you loitering outside _Mamas_? You have a secret baby too?”

Marco grinned. An attempt at humour. That was a start. “Nah, it’s Sasha. I’m her escort today.”

“No fucking kidding.” Jean’s eyes wandered down with the bags Marco hand crammed onto a few numb fingers. “Looks like she raided a few thousand shops.”

“That’s Sasha, she’s always one to sniff out a bargain.” Marco chuckled weakly, and tried not to think back to the moment in Jean’s house with the painting. With the arms around him. With the chin on his shoulder. Had he smelled good or was that part of Marco’s perverted imagination making it up for him? He mentally scolded himself for such lewd thoughts. He’d only started allowing himself to think about Jean like that, and now he had he was stood behaving like a horny teenager all over again. He had no shame. “Where’s Claudine?” he asked.

“Christa wanted to take her out to the park.” Jean shrugged. “I fancied a walk.”

“No painting?”

Jean’s eyes widened a fraction, and Marco wondered if he was thinking back to the last time he painted too. “No,” he said after a while, rubbing the back of his neck, “n-no painting. The one I was working on is almost done, so I’m taking a break ‘til after Christmas. The ol’ bint can wait ‘til then.” He shuffled his feet on the crumbling pavement. The awkwardness that seemed palpable between them was painful. Marco didn’t want it there. He wanted to reach out, clear it away like fog and start over. But maybe they had taken a step back. Maybe the closeness had freaked Jean out too much. Maybe _Marco_ had freaked Jean out too much.

He didn’t have time to dwell. Jean was clearing his throat, still looking uncomfortable. “A-actually, I was wondering…” he began, but his mouth snapped shut halfway through like something had taken over his brain for a split second and he needed to shut it down.

Marco kept the smile polite, tilting his head to one side as he waited. “Hm?”

“N-nothing. It’s nothing, don’t worry.” Jean looked surprised he’d even managed to get as much as he did out, fixing his gaze on a spot on the floor between them. There was a part of him that seemed annoyed at himself- but Marco wasn’t sure why.

“No, go on,” he prompted gently, “what is it?”

“It’s just…” Jean squirmed a little. “I-It’s probably just gonna be me and Claudine this year, and I thought… I-I thought…” He huffed. “If you wanna…?”

Marco blinked. Jean was… was he really doing what he thought he was doing? “You’re inviting me round for Christmas?” he asked, not quite believing it.

Jean looked wild-eyed at him. “You don’t have to, fuck, if you already have plans-”

Marco chuckled. “Well, I’m going to Mikasa’s for Christmas, sort of a tradition-” he noticed Jean sag considerably “-but we usually have a big gathering somewhere for New Year’s. No one can afford the turkey thing at Christmas, so we save up all we’ve got and blow it on one night. I think it’s gonna just be at my place this year… to keep it cheap, y’know. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come, actually.”

Jean blinked. “Oh… really?”

Marco grinned, relief flooding through him. If Jean wanted to invite him around for Christmas, he couldn’t have been as awkward as Marco thought he was. That was a plus. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I want you there?”

Jean shrugged, muttered something about ‘asshole’ and ‘Jaeger’ and gave the space over Marco’s shoulder a hard glare. Marco turned to see Eren watching them with his lip curled. “Will he behave himself?” he asked, gaze not leaving Eren. “I don’t want trouble.”

“He’ll behave himself if I tell him to.” Marco smiled. “C’mon. Will you come? It’d be great to have you.” He didn’t want to look like he was pushing it on him too much, but he wanted it. He really wanted Jean to be there. He had a feeling it would be good for him, even if Jean wasn’t too sure of that himself. “There’s gonna be a few people coming, you can just bring a bit of food and that’s it.”

Jean still looked a little worried. “I dunno,” he said doubtfully.

“Everyone’s really nice,” Marco said, “and the Christmas spirit rubs off on everybody.”

Jean made a face. “Even Eren?”

Marco laughed. “Especially Eren.”

When Sasha came out of the shop minutes later complaining about how patronising the staff were, Jean fell into step with them as they walked back to the apartment. Marco didn’t question it, and neither did the others; Sasha was more than happy to chatter away about anything baby related just to make Jean awkward, and Eren had his head firmly down in perfect rendition of a childish sulk. Marco kept giving him a few shoves, but all he got was a short huff and a foul look cast his way.

Jean was beginning to warm to Sasha, Marco reckoned; he was a little short with her at first, but by the time they were heading out of the city centre he was talking in a very low voice about how formula milk was a nightmare and she was lucky she had her own ‘organic version’ to feed with. Sasha made a point of mentioning breast pumps and Marco swore Jean looked a little sick.

They were in a quiet debate about sleep schedules (Jean was adamant Claudine would never stick to a routine in her life) when a shout came from one of the houses bordering the street.

“ _FAGGOTS!”_  

Marco stopped dead. The ice cold feeling froze his insides and made them want to curdle. He’d heard those slurs before. Those were the slurs that had gotten him so terrified about admitting what he was to himself, the slurs that made him curl into Mikasa’s chest as a teenager and sob that he thought he liked boys too and how horrific and wrong that was. The slur _hurt,_ and hurt more than any knife wound or bruise. Eren had stopped too, but had a rather bored expression on his face, to Marco’s surprise. “Oh, here we go,” he muttered, and before Marco could question him he’d turned around and hollered back, “Evening Mrs. Presnut!”

When Marco turned with him, he saw that the source of Eren’s torment was a very old, very angry old woman standing outside her door. She had to be approaching her winter years on a downward plummet, for every ounce of her body that was meant to be upright and smooth was precisely the opposite. Everything sagged like she’d been left out in the sun for too long, and the way she glared at them with her tiny, furious eyes reminded Marco of a bad tempered terrier. For a small, harmless little old lady, Mrs. Presnut definitely had a mouth on her. “Don’t you talk to me, you agent of sin!” she squawked at Eren.

“And a happy new year to you too.” Eren rolled his eyes. “The old dear used to live in the bedsit next to mine. She’s never been too happy with my way of life, have you Glenda?”

She sucked in a breath like Eren had insulted her. “How dare you call my name, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, lying with men the way you do!”

Eren folded his arms. “You done yet?”

“And _you-_ ” she pointed a wavering hand at Marco “-you’re just as bad, fraternising with the filth like him!”

“Hey, don’t you go calling him a fraterniser!” Eren replied, pointing at Marco in a schoolboy ‘he did it first’ way. “He fucks men too! If anyone’s the fraterniser, it’s Jean!”

Marco choked. “ _Eren.”_

“Hey, if I’m gonna get yelled at, you are too. S’only fair.”

“How is this in any way fair?!”

“You’re both agents of sin!” she shouted, cutting them off. “You’re destined for the flames of Hell! That’s the only good place for you! Defilers! Defilers!” She was practically hopping from foot to foot with rage. It would have been funny, if Marco wasn’t feeling like his guts were being put through a meat grinder with every profanity hurled his way.

He heard the shuffle of feet behind him, and then Sasha and Jean were back with him, staring at the little exchange going on between Eren and the tiny old woman. They were shouting like they were on opposite ends of a football field, Eren with far less fire than the geriatric, and lights were starting to come on down the street. Sasha was watching Eren in astonishment, but Jean wasn’t. His entire attention was focused on Marco. Marco could feel his cheeks heating up at the force of his gaze, but didn’t let himself meet them until the last minute. When he did, he saw the furrowed brows and pain that seemed reflected off of his own. “Are you okay?” Jean said, in a voice lower than a whisper. 

Marco sniffed. He looked down. _You have problems._ He shook his head. His words couldn’t come out, but he knew he couldn’t see to be affected by it. _Sticks and stones_ , he reminded himself, raising his head and giving Jean a weak smile. _Sticks and stones, sticks and stones._ Jean didn’t look convinced by the smile, and stepped a little closer to him so the material of their jackets brushed together. It wasn’t exactly contact, but Marco knew it was the best thing Jean could give him. He looked just as tense, just as on edge as Eren was, even if it was just because he didn’t like the confrontation, but this was what he could give. It was enough, but Marco couldn’t help his mind from wandering. If only he had the guts to reach out and pull him closer, wind an arm around his waist maybe…

“I THINK IT’S TIME FOR YOUR HORLICKS, MRS. PRESNUT!”

“YOU WILL BURN IN HELL.”

“YEAH WELL AT LEAST HELL’S WARMER THAN YOUR HEART, YOU CRUSTY BITCH”

_Well_ , Marco thought with a sigh, _that was one way to snap him out of a daydream._ Jean still stayed close, though, and he was thankful- just a little bit.

Mrs. Presnut then chose another tactic. She rounded on someone else. “You are all members of a den of sin and lustful thoughts!” she squawked, thrusting a shaking finger at Sasha’s rotund belly. “And you, you’re nothing but an unmarried _whore_ ,” she spat.

Eren was used to abuse- he endured it a lot. Marco didn’t like it, but he was ready for it. Sasha was taken completely unawares. The minute the attention was pointed on her, she flinched as though she’d been struck. “I…I …. No I’m not!” she snapped. Marco could hear the pain in her voice. He reached out a hand and wrapped it around her wrist, pulling her close.

“Your bastard will burn just like the others!”

“N-no it won’t…s-stop it…” Sasha gritted her teeth together.

“I hope it _dies_ rather than come into this world the child of a whore and the product of a sinful union!” Mrs. Presnut crowed.

That was it. That was what broke Eren’s everlasting patience. “Okay,” he said, taking a step forward. “That’s enough, now. You do not insult my friends, get that?”

“Defiler! Defiler!”

“Right, that’s it, I am going to steal your tree now.”

Marco blinked, completely wrongfooted. “Eren, what?”

“I am going to steal her tree,” he said, like it was the most logical thing in the world.

“Don’t you come near me!” She was backing away, brandishing an umbrella in front of her like an ancient sword.

“You’re not serious,” Marco said.

Eren’s expression didn’t change. “Dead serious. We need a Christmas tree.”

“None of those are Christmas trees.”

“We will have a Christmas sapling, then.”

Marco was at a loss. “I can’t believe you are going to take a tree from an old woman,” he said.

“Does she deserve it?”

“Well… I guess, but-”

“I’m gonna steal the tree.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

Eren just strode forward. Marco raked a hand through his hair and turned around. “Eren Jaeger, I will give you to the count of three and you will come back without any foliage!” he called over his shoulder. He waited. Nothing. “One!” Still nothing.

“I don’t think it’s working,” Jean said unhelpfully.

“Two!” Marco continued.

“Marco, he’s fucking stealing a tree.”

“Three!”

“Marco, he stole a tree.”

All Marco saw was a blur of colour as Eren shot past them carrying a rather large potted sapling, shouting, “Fucking leg it!” And that was it.

He was running.

He was shouting “Shit,” and pelting it down the road with Jean and Sasha hot on his heels, with a very old lady shouting and screeching like a banshee after them. He should have been scared, or shouting abuse at Eren, he was sure of it. But with Sasha wheezing with laughter beside him, and Jean sprinting ahead and trying to get Eren to turn around and, “give the fucking plant back now you stupid prick,” Marco couldn’t stop the laughter bursting out of his chest. It felt pretty good. He laughed until his lungs started to hurt, and even when Jean dropped back from chasing Eren to make sure he was okay, he couldn’t stop the hiccoughing laughs spilling out of him. It was a nice burn, for once.

They ran the entire way back to the apartment, almost tripping into the lift (and Marco almost landing face-first into the plant’s soil) and only when the lift doors were closed around them did he stop laughing. It was mainly because he felt a twitch come from his left hand, and when he looked down-

Jean’s hand was in it.

Marco stopped breathing. He must have grabbed him when they were running along the street nearest the complex… Jean _had_ been falling behind, after all… “O-oh, s-sorry!” he said, wrenching his hand free and giving Jean a small, if not panicked, smile. “I just… I didn’t want you to fall behind, I guess, heh.”

Jean only seemed to have noticed their hands when Marco did, and was in the middle of turning the colour of a stop sign. Marco got a short glimpse of a smile, however small, but the ridiculous feeling he got at the sight was crushed underfoot when the doors opened to a surprised Connie. “Jesus!” He jumped back, clutching his chest. “You gave me a heart atta- what is Eren doing with a baby tree?”

“Spoils of war,” Eren replied with a sniff, stepping out of the lift with as much grace as he could muster under the weight of the plant. “Long story. I’ll tell you about it inside.”

“I can’t stay, actually, I- er- need to get to a lecture.” Marco wasn’t blind to the way he offered a far more apologetic smile to Sasha than the rest of them. “But I’ll come over later, if you want?”

“That’d be great!” Sasha answered for them, giving him the broadest grin she could.

Connie was just as surprised as the others at Sasha’s enthusiasm, and couldn’t wipe the pride off his face quick enough. “Sure… sure, okay, yeah! Great!” he said a touch too brightly, and turned around to root through his bag. Marco covered up a snort of laughter, and Sasha smacked him on the shoulder. Jean stood silent beside them, watching the exchange with a slightly amused expression, but the redness to his cheeks remained like a signal flare. Marco sighed. _What do you know? Even if you were going to go for it- which you are **not** \- would you have a chance in the world? _He glanced at Jean, at the way he shuffled from foot to foot and looked anxiously about him like he was waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows and catch him out. _Probably not_ , his mind answered sadly for him.

“-is came for you today in the post, you weren’t in so they left it with me!” Connie was saying. Marco realised too late that he was the one being stared at.

He blinked. “Sorry?”

Connie held out a rather badly wrapped box. “Parcel. For you. Came today, when you were out, and I didn’t want to leave it in the flat in case… well, you know. Safety first, and all that.”

“Oh…thanks.” Marco took it from him with a frown. He wasn’t expecting anything, and it definitely wasn’t some kind of online order (he’d had to pawn his computer a while ago)... so who would be sending him something?

There was a click from the door and Eren managed to swing himself into Marco’s apartment, trying his best to ignore the insistent meowing at his feet as he staggered towards the middle of the room in order to dump the plant in some sort of acceptable place. Marco made to follow him, Sasha too busy distracting Connie from leaving to do such a simple thing as to go in for lunch, but hung back when he felt a blank space beside him. He turned. “Jean, don’t you want to come in?” he asked.

Jean bit his lip. “I do, but… I can’t. I can’t, Christa has Claudine and I can’t just leave her in the lurch for this long. M’sorry.” From the look on his face, he genuinely meant it.

“It’s okay,” Marco said, although his insides appeared to differ on the subject. “Will I see you before Christmas?”

“Dunno,” Jean shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Well, if I don’t…” Marco smiled. “Merry Christmas, Jean.”

Jean gulped something back, though Marco wasn’t sure what. “Y-yeah, Merry Christmas to you an’ all.”

Marco chuckled. “And I’ll give you your presents on New Year’s Eve, when you come to the party,” he said, stepping back into the apartment.

“Now you’re bribing me to come? Below the belt, Bodt.”

He tutted. “I prefer to call it light persuasion.”

Jean rolled his eyes, though there was a nervous laughter dancing on the tip of his tongue. “Fine, fine, you nerd, I’ll see you on New Year’s. Happy?”

Marco gave a feeble wave as the lift doors closed on Jean, shutting him from view, and muttered a soft, “very,” under his breath. Connie gave him a glance as he left, and Marco was sure it looked a bit too knowing for his liking.

After he got inside, he gave the parcel Connie had given him an experimental shake. Curiosity was overcoming him now. “What is it?” Eren asked, grunting as he heaved the sapling over to the corner of the room. Marco glanced up. It was a very tall shrub, really, a big green shrub cut in a sort of conical shape, but the leaves were frosted with pigment. Marco was no gardener, but the plant _was_ kind of pretty. Even if he was going to kick Eren’s ass about it later, he had to admit he had a good eye for trees.

“I don’t know,” he said, sitting down on the sofa and giving it another shake. The address was typed, so there was no clue with handwriting either.

“Is it a Christmas present?”

“I don’t know, Eren.”

“Open it then!”

Marco wanted to. His fingers twitched at the paper, the battered brown parcel paper that only older people used nowadays- or those who wanted the old times back.

Marco couldn’t help it. He tore off the paper, uncovering layer after layer as he went, and by the time Sasha came back in he had only just opened the box up. There were three things in there; another, thinner box, a card and a letter. The letter was addressed to Marco, as was the card, but this time it was handwritten. Handwritten, with a tiny flower doodled in the corner. Marco tasted metal in the back of his throat. He knew that handwriting. He’d seen it filling out forms and records too many times. And only one person drew flowers like that.

“Marco? What is i-?” Eren stopped dead when he, too, spotted the writing. “Shit,” he hissed.

Marco got to his feet without a word, and went to his room. He couldn’t deal with it when there were people around. He had to be on his own.

“What is it?” he heard Sasha ask Eren, concern clouding her voice.

“It’s from Hyacinth,” Eren mumbled faintly.

“Hyacinth?”

“Hyacinth Wagner. Thomas’s mother.”

Marco shut the bedroom door after that. He didn’t want to hear Eren’s explanation to Sasha. She still wrote to him every Christmas, after three years she still thought of him. It was sweet, in a way, and Marco would have been grateful if it weren’t for the way his teeth were cutting into his bottom lip at the mere sight of her handwriting. _He could do this. Deep breaths._

He opened the card first, assuming that it would be the easiest one to deal with- and promptly regretted it. On opening it, a handful of notes dropped out onto his lap. Ten pound notes. Five of them. “O-oh god,” he mumbled, picking them up. She always gave him money. She knew how broke he was. The warm prickling at the corners of his eyes had already begun by the time he’d set the money down and taken in the slightly-too-sweet robin in the snow on the front of the card. The greeting was a usual one, a ‘ _Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!_ ’ but the little handwritten message at the end- ‘ _we will always be here for you_ ’- almost shattered him. But he stayed strong. He was an adult now, he could handle a simple sappy card and letter. Couldn’t he? He picked up the letter with shaking hands anyway, adulthood be damned, and took a deep breath. Then he opened it.

‘ _Marco,_

_I can’t believe it’s been another year. I hope you’re well, and keeping yourself healthy back there in Trost. I don’t expect you’ve had much time to think, being in charge of that shop of yours, and keeping busy like you always did. Emil and I are fine, aside from a few peace rallies gone a bit awry recently (I got arrested- again), but that can’t exactly be helped. But I won’t go off on a political gallivant, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear it._

_I know we never talk about him, but I feel as though I have to. Three years is a long time, I know, and I know that despite that it still hurts to think about it, but as always I want you to know that you’re not alone, and our door is always open to you should you need us. My son was very fond of you, and I know he was lucky to have you around. We will always be grateful to you. Have your parents contacted you recently? Not to worry if they haven’t- I’m sure they’ll come around. Parents never stop loving their children, even if the children aren’t there anymore._

_Anyway, Emil and I decided that it was time to sort through Thomas’s things. Not to throw anything away, you understand, but just to get an understanding of how much there was. And my word, what a hoarder my son was! I raised him better! We found medical textbooks, mainly, and a few odds and ends in between clothes- as I said, a hoarder!- but we found something else. It was a dusty old camera that Emil says was his once upon a time, when he was a teenager, and the film was all used up. There was an album there too, in the same box, and when we opened it… well, the box was labelled ‘For Marco’ for a reason, I suppose._

_This is what’s in the package enclosed. Now, don’t feel as though you have to look at it, or keep it at all- I would understand totally if you want to leave it alone and let it gather dust. But Thomas wanted you to have it, so I just did what he told me._

_I hope you had a brilliant year, Marco, full of wonderful things, and you have an even better one next year. You deserve all the happiness in the world, and I hope you know that. Our number is still the same, and we have a computer now (I didn’t agree with the consumerist agenda they have- Emil said it would help with accounts) so I’ve attached our email address. If you ever want to talk about anything, or just meet up for a catch up, please use it. You’re a part of the family, and nothing will change that._

_Love always,_

_The Wagners x_

_p.s. don’t be angry about the money. I know you struggle, and money is nothing but a social construct- a necessary evil to keep this land of capitalism spinning…_

_p.p.s. This is Emil. She means don’t try to pay us back, money is only money. ’_

Marco wasn’t sure how he managed to keep himself together until the end. The hole was back in his chest, punched afresh and too tired to even bleed. He just sat there, immobile on his bed, reading the letter over and over again and trying to unread it. She was worried about him; he could tell by how wordy the letter was. He hadn’t contacted her since after the funeral, but she still wrote him letters, still persisted, and that was enough to make him want to write back every year. But what would he say?

‘ _I still feel empty without your son in my life?’_

_‘I just want him back, and I know you do too’_?

_‘I want to move on but I’m scared to let go’_?

None of them was going to work. He couldn’t pretend, either. So he kept quiet. He didn’t write. He didn’t call. He didn’t do anything. And yet she kept trying, and now she was sending him money… He shook himself, and looked back at the package still sat in the box. He gulped. He didn’t know if he could do it. Could he pick it up and flick through the photos that held so many shadows he wouldn’t know what to do with? He bit his lip and pulled it towards him. He sniffled a little- had he been crying? He hadn’t noticed- and took it out of the box. It felt heavy, and it clunked satisfyingly into his lap. Marco could feel the texture of the book underneath the paper when he moved it, and it had a lingering scent that he recognised, with a choked sob, as Thomas’s. It was faint, barely there, but after he’d inhaled that self-same scent on pillows, on shirts, from the crevice of Thomas’s neck for so long, it wasn’t something he was able to forget.

His hands twitched towards the wrapping, wanting more than ever to just rip off the paper and get on with it, but he found his eyes wandering around the room. They wandered, and fell on the baby carrier he’d tucked away in a corner out of prying eyes. He stared at it like he was willing it to come to life and offer him a solution, but all it did was just make him ache on the other side of his chest. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered aloud to the room, but the room gave him no answer.

Marco let the tears roll down his face, but only after he put the album, letter and all, back into the box and under his bed. He let the card stay up, but couldn’t bring himself to look at it. He hadn’t cried properly and selfishly in a long while- he was due a break from feeling okay. And as he grabbed hold of his bedsheets and tried to keep as quiet as he could, all he could think of was the baby carrier and the man who’s life it would make better, and the album full of dead laughter and ghost smiles.

* * *

Marco didn’t know how many times he stared at the box after that. Probably more than he should have. He dragged it out from underneath the bed every now and again, stared at it, then chickened out and kicked it back into place. Lather, rinse, repeat. It felt like days spent staring, and wondering, and backing away.

It shouldn’t have felt like a choice. It should have been easy to just open up the album, smile at the memories and move onto new ones. But fighting over a ghost who loved him and a living soul who might not was harder than Marco ever anticipated. He was determined not to let it ruin his Christmas, though, and after mentioning it to Eren once and showing him the card the Wagners had sent, that was all he said on the matter. He would contact them this time- he promised himself he would- but not right now. Right now, he wanted to enjoy the season as best he could.

He didn’t see Jean before Christmas. He couldn’t help the disappointment that hung heavy over him, but it was dispersed when he called on Christmas Eve to mumble another Christmas greeting down the phone and ask if Marco had strangled Eren yet. They ended up talking for two hours, and Marco managed to coax a bout of uncontrollable laughter out of Jean after telling him that Eren had gone out to get lights and a star for the tree, and come back with Mrs Presnut’s garden gnome after another eventful encounter. “You’ll make him take it back, right?” Jean said through his ungainly snorts of laughter.

“Eventually. I’ll let him keep it ‘til after New Year. He’s given the gnome a name though, so I think it’ll be snuck out.”

“Jesus Christ, my chest hurts…”

They only said goodbye because Claudine woke up from her nap and needed changing. Jean couldn’t disguise the disgust in his voice as he was forced to hang up to deal with it, but Marco cradled the memory of his laughter close like it would break if he handled it too roughly. Jean had a good laugh. It was a little brittle, like it hadn’t been used for a while, but it was good.

Even the thought of going to the support meeting with Eren didn’t put as much of a damper on his mood as he thought. After begrudgingly accepting that it probably was a good idea, Eren went to his last session on Christmas Eve (there was one on Christmas Day but Eren refused to go to _that_ one) and Marco took his place on the chair outside. This time, he had company. Armin seemed to finish his session a few minutes before Eren went to his own, and he appeared around the corner with a sunny smile and a few kind words uttered in greeting. Marco ended up talking to Armin for the entire hour, mainly about Eren and how he was getting on, but also about Armin’s thesis and what he was planning to do for Christmas. Armin was really animated when he got going; he was like Jean in that respect. He assumed that no one would want to hear about his research, but when Marco showed genuine interest he was off like an athlete at the sound of a bell. Marco thought it was adorable, but wouldn’t dare that to Eren for fear of a fainting episode.

When Armin admitted he didn’t have many plans for New Year, Marco blurted out that he was welcome to come to his apartment too. When Armin looked unsure, he added, “the more the merrier, honestly! It’s better than staying in on your own, right?”

“I guess… but it wouldn’t make it awkward for your friend, would it?” Armin inclined his head towards the door gently. “I mean… I wouldn’t want him to think I was there to investigate him.”

Marco fought back his laughter as he replied, “No, I think Eren would be thrilled if you came.”

He wasn’t exactly wrong. Eren both punched and kissed him. He hit him even harder when Marco got a text from Armin to say he would be delighted to come. _There goes the idea of a quiet night in with a few friends_ , Marco thought to himself, _but maybe this is what I need. And who am I kidding, it was never going to be quiet with Eren and Ymir around._ But still, there was Christmas to get through yet.

Spending Christmas with Mikasa was something Marco always looked forward to, mainly because Mikasa saved up her money to buy the best wine to splash out on them all. It was usually a crowd of three, with Marco breaking up the usually sombre pair Eren and Mikasa cut at that particular time of year, but Sasha and Connie also made an appearance. Connie spent the majority of the day talking to Eren about his reptiles (and Eren couldn’t get enough of it) whilst Sasha gorged on as much food as she could stomach before her belly demanded she stop and wait for dessert. Mikasa had been hesitant at the new arrivals to the tradition, but she soon relaxed and gave Marco a smile. After all, the three of them had a history that Sasha and Connie didn’t need to know about. They were a welcome distraction from the reminiscing they were bound to have done if they were on their own. Mikasa was the only person Marco knew who could afford a turkey, but she joked that it was coming out of her savings. Marco wouldn’t be surprised if that was true.

She had gotten both him and Eren scarves for Christmas; Marco couldn’t help the beam that appeared when he unwrapped his. It was a petrol blue colour, and he wound it around his throat immediately, refusing to take it off even though Mikasa insisted he wouldn’t feel the benefit if he wore it indoors. Eren’s was green, and he did exactly the same. Connie burst out laughing at the way Mikasa sat glaring at them both as they glared equally hard back, scarves on and unflinching. Marco took his off. Eren didn’t.

Marco hadn’t bought Mikasa much. His funds had run out quicker than he’d anticipated, and all he managed to get was another cheap red lipstick for her and a hastily scrawled ‘IOU a non-sexual favour’ in the best adorable writing he could muster. Mikasa chuckled at the note, but thanked him for the lipstick nonetheless, reaching over and giving him a lingering kiss on his cheek after trying it out. Marco was pretty sure he blushed a deeper red than the lipstick mark on his skin.

Marco made a habit of trying to buy for as many people as he possibly could and inevitably losing all the money he saved so hard to keep, but this year he had tried to keep as careful as he could. He bought Sasha chocolate, and she tried to kiss him. He bought Connie chocolate too, and got a big grin. Eren, on the other hand…

“Where’s my present then, Father fuckin’ Christmas?” he demanded when they cleared the table away and sank to the floor, groaning at how bloated they were. It was a feeling Marco wasn’t used to, but he definitely treasured it.

“Well,” he snorted, “you’ve been a bad boy this year…”

“That just sounds kinky as shit.”

“…so maybe you just don’t have one.” He shared a look with Mikasa, and they both smirked.

Eren’s expression soured. “Aw, fuck no, I get a present!”

Marco chuckled and cuffed him around the head. “Fine, fine, here.” He wrestled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and offered it to him, sticking his tongue between his teeth as Eren opened it. He watched Eren’s face change from excitement, to confusion, then to shock. “Eren?” he prompted, his smile vanishing a fraction. “Do you like it?”

“You got me tickets,” Eren said faintly.

“Hmm?” Mikasa leaned closer. “What did he get you?”

“You got me tickets to the ZOO.”

Marco could barely suck in enough breath to laugh as Eren launched himself at him, showering tiny kisses all over his face in thanks amid his protests. The others just laughed as Marco tried to drag himself free, but Eren refusing to let go. They ended up with Eren’s head under Marco’s arm and Eren giving his hair an unforgiving yank. “Your present’s so good,” Eren complained as he sat in the headlock, too full of food to struggle, “I bought you something awesome, but not that awesome.”

“Is it the gnome?” Marco asked.

Eren paused. “Maybe.”

“Please don’t let it be the gnome.”

“Look, shut the fuck up, Sidney is a fucking delight and makes a great present.”

The rest of Christmas was spent teasing Eren and finishing off the bottles of wine Mikasa had bought for them all (though Sasha, wisely, stuck to fruit juice). The Christmas felt normal and right, and Marco was around the people he had always spent it with. It felt safe, and worked as his barrier from the parcel under the bed; he didn’t think about Thomas the entire time he was at Mikasa’s, which was a first. He was sure that Mikasa knew it by the way she smiled over her glass at him whenever she got the chance.

But then it was over before he could blink, and as Eren stayed at Mikasa’s for the night Marco was returning home to an empty bed. Sasha went around Connie’s for a little while to watch the endless amounts of Christmas TV he could buffer through his fuzzy set, but Marco made his excuses and flopped onto his bed full to the brim with wine and food and laughter. Batman wandered in with a questioning mewl, the little bell Sasha had tied around his neck jingling merrily as he launched himself onto Marco’s bed and onto his stomach. “Ow! Batman, you big lug!” Marco complained as his cat rolled off of him and stretched out with a yowl beside him. He didn’t have the heart to kick him off- it was Christmas, after all. He did wake up the next morning with a long, angry scratch down his arm after he had tried to drag the cat closer to his chest. Batman, unfortunately, did not take kindly to the act of affection.

The next few days saw Marco back at work, keeping himself busy and tinkering away at the many foreign objects that Marlow threw his way. He ended up inviting Marlow too, just to make the apartment that little bit fuller, and Marlow seemed almost surprised Marco had invited him. “I mean, I know we’re friends and all,” he said, “but I didn’t think you liked me _that_ much.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Marco snorted, and that was the end of that.

Ymir had already told him she was planning to set off a firework or two off the balcony, so it was guaranteed. New Year’s Eve was going to be a fair bit bigger than the year before.

In reality, Marco wasn’t a fan of New Year’s Eve; he didn’t like the way people said goodbye to the old year and welcomed in the new like there was going to be some amazing revelation about the world that would make their lives better in the future. He was too busy grieving about what he lost in the past to worry about what the future held. Besides, Thomas loved New Year’s Eve. It had been his favourite holiday, and Marco couldn’t even try to force him from his mind in the lead up. Eren took to staying curled up alongside him for longer, and Marco wasn’t sure if it was because he could tell or not. On New Year’s Eve morning, he gave Marco a peck on the chin as he walked past, and murmured, “It’s okay. I miss him too,” without even having to ask.

Marco and Sasha made sure that the apartment was spotless for the evening ahead, and roped in Eren to help with a few decorations. Marco still laughed at their poorly decorated sapling shrub sitting in the corner, and thought back to Jean’s tiny Christmas tree. _At least we had the right idea_ , he thought, _though Jean’s **looks** like a Christmas tree. _Once they had the lights strung up, and Sasha had gone to the shops to get as much alcohol as she could a) afford and b) carry, Marco slumped down into a chair and tried to breathe.

“God, you’re not worried about being a host, are you?” Eren asked as he watched Marco drag a hand across his brow with a barely together sigh. “Because you know everyone, they just do their own thing. They all know where everything is, everyone practically lives here…”

“It’s not that. It’s just…” Marco shrugged. “It just feels weird, him not being here, you know?”

Eren frowned. He sat down next to him, and Marco felt the weight of his head on his shoulder. “I know,” Eren said, “and it fucking sucks. I miss him too. He’d probably be getting tangled up in all the lights by now, wouldn’t he?”

Marco chuckled weakly. “Yeah.”

“But you know what? He’d want you to have fun tonight.” Eren shrugged. “And who better to help you have fun than me, Eren Jaeger, figurehead of questionable parties.”

Marco smiled. “Thanks, but… I still feel kind of bad. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Ah, you’ll change your mind once you get some beer down your gullet.” Eren hopped off the sofa and sauntered towards the fridge, throwing a beer bottle in Marco’s direction in the next second. He headed back over with his own, and popped the cap off of Marco’s as they sat there side by side. “I know you think too much on New Year’s Eve. And I know that the first New Year’s without him, you ran away from whatever party you were at and scared Mikasa half to death. But it’s gonna be different this year, I promise you.” He clinked the beer glasses together and took a long, dry gulp. Marco eyed the beer dubiously, but shrugged and took a gulp. He nearly spat it back out with how rancid it tasted, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and cheap beer was bound to get him in the mood quicker.

By the time the first people were arriving, he had a pleasant hum in his belly that was definitely taking the edge off of the lingering threat of grief. Connie burst in early brandishing a bag full of beer that clinked merrily as he danced past Marco in the doorway. “Where’s Sash, she back yet?” he asked as he plonked the bag down on the side.

“She’ll be back soon,” Marco said. “Uh… Connie?”

“Yeah?”

He paused. He wanted to ask about the way Sasha’s face lit up whenever there was a mention of Connie in the apartment, or the way she seemed so much happier when he was around. But he ended up just patting him on the shoulder and showing him where to put the beer if he didn’t want Eren stealing it. It was something they had to figure out on their own. It wasn’t as if Connie wasn’t interested- it was clear the feeling was very, very mutual. But he shook his head, and asked, “How’s uni going?” like it was the question he wanted to ask all along.

Connie decided to bring his boombox, a dinosaur of a thing that would have looked more comfortable in an 80s teen movie. It was set up and blasting whatever sort of strange rock Connie listened to when Sasha returned. “Look who I found in the hallway!” she crowed, and Marlow appeared behind her, scratching the back of his neck as he glanced around at them all. “I, er, brought food?” he said.

“Dude, have you had your head fucking shaved?” was Eren’s polite form of greeting.

Marlow shot him a look of displeasure. “It’s called a Mohawk, dickhead. It’s better than your useless mop.”

Marco rolled his eyes. _Oye._ Eren and Marlow tended to express their affection through insults, and he was never really sure of how it worked. All he knew was that Eren always took it too far, and if he wasn’t careful…

“Well, at least it makes you look less like a mushroom. Maybe Mikasa will bang you now.”

_Yep, there it was._

Marco had to drag Marlow’s spluttering body away before he and Eren started ‘play’ fighting all over the apartment. The last time they’d tried, Eren got a broken nose and Marlow put his foot through a window. Once Marlow had a beer in his hand and Eren retreated back to the sofa, all was well. Personally, Marco thought the Mohawk suited him. It definitely showed the piercings Marco didn’t even know he had all the way up his ear. Marlow just shrugged when he was asked and said it was his one act of rebellion for not being the prodigal child. Eren pointed out it was probably because Mikasa had mentioned once that she liked piercings.

Marlow was in the middle of strangling Eren when Mikasa and Ymir showed up together, and Ymir tried to join in the scuffle as her personal act of greeting (both boys stopped immediately). Marco had another box passed to him, this time of cider, and he decided to take one- it was his right as host, after all- before he joined the party. “How’s your ink holdin’ up?” Ymir asked as Marco slumped to the floor beside her.

“It’s all healed up now, thanks. It looks great.”

“Don’t bother about the rest of the money for it. I’d feel like a fuckin’ wench takin it from you.” She took a swig of beer and coughed a little. “What the fuck is this horsepiss?”

“It’s the only thing I could afford,” Connie muttered.

“Well it’s wee horsepiss,” Ymir snorted. She took another swig. “Actually, no, horsepiss would have more of a kick.”

Marco gave her a playful shove. “Behave.”

He was the only one who could get away with manhandling Ymir- anyone else would have been floored with a punch in seconds. Ymir merely let out a barking laugh and shoved him right back. “I didn’t say it was _bad_ horsepiss. Jus’ gonna have to drink a lot of it, Twinkletoes.” She looked over at the tree sat in the corner and frowned. “The fuck is that sad sack o’ twig?”

“It’s a Christmas tree,” Eren said, as though it was obvious.

“Doesn’t look like a Christmas tree.” Ymir popped her lips. “Where did you get it?”

“I stole it from a homophobe,” he said proudly, sauntering towards it and throwing an arm around it.

Ymir raised a brow. “Standard.”

They all talked amongst themselves for a while, just basking in the knowledge that for once, they were somewhere safe that didn’t want anything from them in return, and Marco began to relax. He sunk into the atmosphere, drank more of the terrible beer Sasha bought for him and even more of Ymir’s cider. Ymir had since produced a silver hip flask from her pocket and was swigging from it throughout her conversation with Marlow, who looked seven shades of intimidated by her brashness. When Marco brushed past her on a quest for more alcohol, he had smelt the distinctive kick of whisky. He started to forget about the bad things, the horrible things, the moments from the past year that had made him want to curl up into his shell and hide from everything. He didn’t forget about Thomas, exactly, but the pain was muffled now, like he had stepped inside a bubble where nothing could touch him.

But then there was a knock on the door, and the bubble popped.

“Who’s that?” Mikasa asked, standing up from her place on the floor and striding towards the door. Marco scrambled to follow her.

“Well, I invited Jean, so…”

Mikasa gave him a long look. “Marco, do you really think that’s wise?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “You’re not meant to be drinking _anyway_. I know that you’re not meant to drink in excess on your medication, but I’ll let it slide because it’s New Year’s Eve. You do remember what you get like when you’re drunk, don’t you?”

Marco snorted. “I’ll be fine, Mikasa. Don’t worry about me.”

She didn’t look convinced. “The next thing will be that you invited that guy Eren’s so doe-y for.”

Marco laughed a little too loudly and jogged past her. “Maybe you shouldn’t answer the door then.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Marco.”

Marco ignored her as he swung the door open- to see Christa and Jean, standing close together with Claudine’s car seat between them. Christa was dressed in a salmon pink skirt and grey cardigan, the smile on her face brightening up everything still further. Jean, though… _Jesus._

The hoodie he usually favoured was gone, replaced instead with a slightly patchy looking black jacket and a charcoal grey button-up shirt underneath, and a roughly done black tie that hung a little too low on his collar to be right but enough to make Marco bite his lip to keep from saying how amazing he looked. The jacket had been fitted for Jean once upon a time, as it seemed to curve in at his waist to show just how wiry he was. His jeans were immaculate, no holes to be seen, and were skinnier than he usually wore them. They could have passed as suit trousers if people didn’t look too hard at them. The fact that Jean had made such an effort made Marco feel a little conscious, with his slightly-nicer-than-usual Spiderman top and dark blue jeans. Jean’s gaze was firmly anywhere but at Marco, his cheeks puffed out like he was sulking.

Christa took his attention first. “Marco! How nice to see you again!” she said, reaching up on tiptoes to plant a small kiss on his cheek. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Christa, thanks!” Marco couldn’t help but grin at her boundless energy, Jean’s appearance vanishing from his mind’s eye for a moment. “Come in, there’s drink on the side and food wherever you can scrounge it.”

“You’re a darling.”

Christa skipped past Marco and into the living room, brandishing her bottle of gin with collective ‘whoop’s from the crowd gathered there (and a cry of ‘LASSIE’ from Ymir), and Marco turned to chuckle at Jean and joke about Christa bringing the party to them. But Jean wasn’t in the doorway anymore. Marco frowned. He hadn’t gone inside, that was for sure. He took a few calculated steps outside, still frowning, and found Jean flattened against the hallway wall, chest rising and falling raggedly. Marco’s face fell. _The coffee shop. The hesitation in his eyes whenever there were more than two people in a room. The look of a cornered animal in his eyes_. It was all things he’d seen before- how could he have forgotten?

“Jean?” he asked softly, making sure to approach with as little noise as possible.

“D-don’t… don’t say anything.” Jean wetted his lips and cast his gaze down. “M’sorry, it’s just… it’s a lot of people.”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, it is, but you don’t have to worry about them. They’re all friends. They won’t hurt you.”

Jean nodded, eyes still fixed on the floor. “I know. But it’s easier said than f-fucking done.”

Marco reached out to him, hesitated, then put a hand on his shoulder. Gentle. Normal. This was what normal people did. “You don’t have to stay, Jean,” he said, though he hated himself for saying it. “I can walk you home. Do you want me to?”

Jean shook his head like a child, biting his lip. “N-no, I’m not… I’m not a toddler, I can do it, just… gimme a minute.” His breathing was getting better, Marco noticed, and the drained look was leaving his face inch by inch. Marco nodded, gave him a smile, and he got a shaky one in response.

He knew better than to just drag him in before he was ready, though, so he crouched to peek at Claudine in her car seat. She was awake, and peered right back at him as he got to her eye level. “Hey, sweetie,” Marco grinned. “How you doing, huh? You going to party with all the grown ups?” Claudine’s face broke into a smile as she recognised him, and she reached out a hand to try to grab him. Marco chuckled and kept out of grabbing range. She was wearing a tiny version of trousers and a little jumper covered in pale blue stars all over it, and he couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face. “You look _very_ fancy, little lady!” Claudine squeaked happily and tried to wriggle closer. “So very fancy,” Marco continued, “almost as fancy as your uncle, eh?” He chanced a look up at Jean, and saw that he was being watched intently. He flushed and looked back to Claudine. “You can show your uncle how it’s done, can’t you? Hmm? Your uncle’s big and strong and he can go into that room, can’t he?”

“Stop talkin’ shit about me to her. S’not polite.”

Marco smiled as he straightened up. “Sorry. She started the conversation.” He saw a crack in Jean’s nervousness, and tried to fuel it further. “I told people not to go into my room. If it gets too much, or you just want a break, then just go in there. I can show you where it is. Or if you want a walk, or…”

“Marco.”

“Hmm?”

“Why are you so nice about everything?”

Marco was a little thrown by that. “I- er- am selfish, apparently.” He thought back to Jean’s words on the bridge, and shrugged. “Guess I can’t help it sometimes. The selfishness just takes m-”

“I was wrong.” Jean wetted his lips again, and Marco saw that they had been gnawed on. “You’re not… you’re not selfish.” The silence sat between them for a breath. Jean ran a hand through his hair, hair that Marco realised was gelled to the nines, and said, “You’re so nice to me, even though I’m a pathetic piece of dirt. Even though I’m a piece of shit who can’t even walk into a fucking room without-”

“Hey, don’t say those things about yourself.” Marco wanted to reach out, to cup Jean’s face and pull him in close so he could just hold him. He wanted to hold him for so long that Jean’s negativity melted away- but he knew he couldn’t. He just frowned, and took a step closer, hoping that maybe it would be good enough. It was frustrating to learn that it probably wasn’t. “You’re just… fine.”

“I’m a mess is what I am. And why should Claudine have to have someone like me looking out for her? I just… _ugh_.” He ran a hand through his hair again.

“Claudine needs you,” Marco said. Jean scoffed. “I mean it, Jean. You may think you’re a screw-up, or not worth anything, but to her you’re her _world._ She doesn’t care that you get nervous around lots of people, or that you’re scared about taking care of her. She doesn’t think anything like that.” He glanced down at the baby in the car seat, watching them both with large, wondrous eyes, and he smiled. “She thinks you’re a big, strong knight, and nothing will change that because you’re the one she needs. She sees what she wants to see.”

“What happens if the knight doesn’t do his job? What if…” Jean wetted his lips. “What if the knight’s the one who needs saving?”

Marco stopped. Jean really was this tiny person in a big world that didn’t seem to fit right around him, and what was worse was that Jean was so aware of it that it was starting to hurt. The insecurity was something he was beginning to see more of in Jean from week to week, and he hoped it was only because Jean was opening up to him more and not that it was getting worse. He wasn’t sure what to do if it was the latter. He also saw the change in Jean; he had been so adamant about not needing saving, but yet here he was, suggesting exactly the opposite. “Well, I guess the knight needs to make sure there’s someone there to catch him,” he said eventually.

Jean’s gaze flickered up to Marco’s, and hung there for a while like it was on a thread. Marco was too cowardly to break it; he just wanted to be able to bask in the moment a little longer. Then Jean huffed, and the thread was snapped. “I feel a bit ridiculous, dressed like this and you all… normal,” he grumbled.

Marco laughed. “Excuse me, but this is a clean shirt.” He tugged at the fabric. “Almost new and everything!”

“Yeah well. I wasn’t sure whether you guys were gonna be dressed up, so.” Jean shrugged. The thought crossed Marco’s mind than Jean might not have been to a New Year’s Eve party before. Jean picked at the jacket consciously. “M’I overdressed?”

Marco tilted his head to one side. “A little, but it’s okay. We can sort that out.”

“How?”

Marco made a hum of thought in the back of his throat and sized him up. If he had his way, he wouldn’t change anything. Even though the clothes looked haphazardly thrown on, it was obvious Jean had tried to make an effort. “Well, for starters, I think the tie should go,” he said, though it pained him to say it.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, come here.” Jean willingly stepped forward, and before Marco thought about it too much his hands were around Jean’s neck, trying to loosen the knot he’d clearly tightened too tight in a panic. Marco willed his fingers not to tremble as they moved about the fabric, occasionally brushing the skin of Jean’s neck and twitching like he was made of lightning. Marco kept his eyes on the tie, trying to breathe normally despite feeling Jean’s gaze on him. When he finally got it loose, he clucked his tongue like it was a big nuisance but let the tie flow slowly through his hands. He was certain he’d heard Jean’s breath stutter, but he dismissed it immediately. It was only when he glanced up that he realised how close they were. There was barely a gap between them. He hissed out a breath and stepped back, running a hand over his face.

_You are being ridiculous, stop it._

“Uh, and maybe… lose the jacket. And… and roll the sleeves of the shirt up,” he said, his voice quaking halfway through his words. He hoped that they didn’t jumble together in a heap.

Jean looked a little dazed for a moment, but then he woke up and nodded. “R-right, yeah, er hold on.” He shed his jacket with a grunt of effort, muttering about being ‘so stupid’ as he did what Marco suggested. His forearms were bared to the elements, and he couldn’t help shivering a little at the temperature in the hallway. There were a few flecks of paint on the very top of his forearms from where he’d been painting earlier that day, and they stood out like multi-coloured freckles on his skin. Marco gulped. _Oh, he was in trouble. Big, big trouble. If he was getting unnecessary about Jean’s forearms he was well and truly screwed._ “Like this?” Jean asked.

Marco nodded. “MMHMM,” was all he managed to squeak out. “Pop open one of the top buttons, too. On the… the shirt. And, uh…” He walked closer again, withholding his sigh of relief when Jean didn’t shrink away, and the hand on his mouth twitched, itching, wondering if it could get away with what it wanted to do. He took in a breath as Jean waited, and reached out. “Can I…?” he gestured to his hair.

Jean seemed a little confused at the motion, but muttered a weak, “be my guest,” in reply. It was good enough for Marco. He gave Jean a small smile, and reached up to trail a hand through the ash blonde part of his undercut- the hair he’d always wondered the softness of. The gel Jean had put in his hair was sticky and definitely too much in quantity to be right, but Marco’s hand travelled through it okay. He was forced to ruffle it to get Jean’s hair back to its unruly self, and felt the reality of what he was doing prickle the back of his neck. The gel stank of artificial chemicals, but it was working far better once it was shaping the hair instead of flattening it. Marco never used gel- his hair was too wild for it- but he knew that less was more. Apparently, Jean didn’t. He watched the chunks of ash blonde flick up from his touch, and bit his lip as he tried to keep himself from doing it again. Through some kind of superhuman effort, he let his hand drop to his side. “There,” he said, fixing a smile on his face, “You’re all set.”

He was waiting for Jean to hit him, or swear at him for touching him, permission be damned, but there was nothing. Jean just stood there, like a deer in the headlights with his cheeks flushed at the attention. Marco cleared his throat loudly and scooped Claudine’s car seat up. “Jean? You alright?” he dared to ask.

Jean looked like he was holding something back, but he nodded, shuffling his weight from foot to foot like he always did when he got nervous. “Y’know, you’re really living up to your shirt, Ponytail,” he said. It sounded a little faint, or maybe it was his accent getting thicker, Marco wasn’t sure.

He looked down, and laughed. “Oh yeah, I’m totally Spiderman. You know my secret. Shit.” He looked down at Claudine as she babbled away in her car seat, and grinned. “I’m everyone’s favourite messed up superhero, did you know that sweetie?” Claudine smiled up at her inclusion.

Jean sniggered from somewhere behind him. “I dunno, I like Superman more.”

Marco chuckled and walked into his apartment, Jean trailing behind like a nervous dog about to be introduced to a wolf pack. Everyone was as they had been, though now Christa was sat next to Ymir deep in conversation about something, and Eren was hogging the entirety of the sofa. “Jean! What took ya so long?” Sasha called out from her place on the floor, wriggling around so she could catch sight of them both. “And you brought sprog, yay!”

“Sprog?” Connie asked.

The whole room turned towards them. Marco felt Jean tense beside him. He resisted the urge to grab hold of his hand for reassurance. He just stood there and hoped, wished, that everyone kept their strangeness to themselves for the next thirty seconds. He was pretty sure Jean would turn tail and flee if they did otherwise. “I-I’m pretty sure you’ve all met Jean,” he said, nudging him to reiterate the point. He felt like he was introducing a boyfriend to his parents, it was so tense. It took him a while to realise that he wanted their approval, and wanted them to realise that Jean was worth something- like he had.

All eyes, however, remained on the baby that sat staring right back at them. She looked just as startled as her uncle. “This is Jean’s niece, Claudine. She’s a big critic of people, so you better behave yourselves,” Marco joked. Claudine blinked at them, looking at each stranger in turn.

It was all quiet until Ymir stood up and wandered over, casting her eyes over first Jean and then Claudine, a brow raised lazily as she did so. She reminded Marco of a head lioness investigating a newborn cub for the first time. Marco found himself holding his breath. Ymir crouched down, peering in at Claudine with intrigue, before she said, “I remember you, wee bairn. You’re a cute one, for a babby o’ course.” She glanced at Jean. “And you. I wanna talk to you.”

Jean paled. “W-why?” he asked.

“Marco tells me you like space. Planets, galaxies, all that shit. You paint it too?” Even though Ymir was at Claudine’s level and not their own, Marco still felt the power she had freezing them both to the spot. It was the predatory stance she always seemed to give, like she was waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows and attack.

“Er, yeah, I do… a bit…” Jean said.

She stared at him for a beat longer, her dark eyes boring into his, before she shrugged and straightened up. “Client wants a nebula done on his back. I can’t draw space for shit. I need some tips from you.”

“Wha- really?” Jean was flushing again.

“No fuckin’ shit, really.” Ymir tilted her head towards the sofa. “C’mon, we gotta talk art and all that bollocks.” She strode away and kicked Eren in the side. “Oi, Jaegar-arse, get off the fuckin’ sofa.”

“OW, FUCK YOU.”

“I fucked myself this morning, but thanks for the concern.”

Eren made a face. “Ewww.” He rolled off the sofa regardless, grumbling to himself as he strode over to Marco and gawped at Claudine. He didn’t even look at Jean. Even though they were currently at an uneasy truce, Eren had been drinking so it was always going to be tricky. Jean brushed past him accidentally as they passed one another and Eren watched him go, his eyes narrowing as Jean sat down beside Ymir like he thought the sofa cushions would explode. He turned back to Marco. “Why’s he got a baby?” he asked.

Marco blinked. _Oh yeah. Eren hadn’t ever seen him with Claudine._ “I think it’s a long story,” Marco replied.

“Huh. Shit on a stick, the things you find out.” When Marco set Claudine’s car seat down on the kitchen top and carefully levered her out of the contraption, Eren took another step closer. He squinted at her as she tried to snatch chunks of his hair that flicked past her. “Babies are weird,” he declared as Claudine successfully managed to tap him on the nose with a tiny hand. She squealed in excitement and burrowed into Marco’s shirt to hide her giggles from sight. Eren’s face fell. “Aw, now that’s not fair. I’m not meant to find babies cute.”

“Can I hold her, Jean?” Sasha called out.

Jean had been halfway through explaining how he got the cloud-like structures of nebulae to Ymir when she asked. He hesitated, then nodded. “Sure, if she doesn’t cry on you.”

“Yaaay!” Sasha skipped over and thrust out her arms. “Baby please.”

Marco and Claudine shared a look. Claudine giggled. Marco handed her over gently. “Watch her head!” he instructed.

Sasha snorted. “I know, I know,” she said as she let Claudine rest on her bump, “Gosh, Marco, it’s almost like she’s yours.”

Marco was sure Mikasa didn’t even see him- she could _sense_ his face drop. He hadn’t noticed how close he’d become to Claudine, and maybe he was getting _too_ close. After all, Jean always said that it was temporary, hadn’t he? One day, Claudine’s mother, Jean’s sister, was going to come back and get her and that would be that. No more baby. No more Claudine. Marco hated how much that thought hurt him. _But you’re not her father,_ a voice said in the back of his mind, _you’re nothing to her. She’s only small, she’ll forget about you once she’s back where she belongs._ Marco sighed and watched Claudine stare at him from over Sasha’s shoulder. He hoped that wasn’t true.

Mikasa sidled up to him a moment later. “You okay?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Marco, please. You’ll either cry over him or want to fuck him, or cry over how you can’t fuck him. I know you. Drunken Marco has no other modes.”

Marco snorted. “Thanks for the never-ending support, Mikasa.” He grabbed his abandoned can off the side and took another gulp, draining it of its slightly too sweet cider.

“I’m just being realistic.” Mikasa rolled her eyes. “You haven’t denied it again, though. Guess that’s progress.”

“Denied what?” Marco asked.

Mikasa gave him a look. “You know full well _what_.”

The party, after that, devolved into what it should have been; a nice, slightly rowdy group of twenty-somethings complaining about how they were wasting their lives and trying to outdo each other’s hardships. It turned into something of a game halfway through, but Eren got annoyed that everyone seemed to think he was an outlier and shouldn’t be allowed to play (mainly because his hardship was too uncomfortable to talk about). Armin arrived to the party an hour late, and burst in gasping for breath. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I got held up, the traffic was a nightmare and then…” He wheezed. “Well, I’m here now. Please let me drink something.”

“Be my guest!” Marco said, directing him towards the alcohol. Now was where the real challenge began. Eren’s ears had already pricked up the moment Armin walked through the door, and now he stared shamelessly at him from his place behind the sofa. A place he’d darted behind the moment the door opened with a squeak of alarm. Armin grabbed a bottle of fruit-flavoured something from Sasha’s stint to the shop, and looked over at the group. “Hello,” he said, smiling pleasantly at them all. “I didn’t mean to be late, and I don’t think I know many of you, but… Marco invited me. I hope that’s alright.”

Mikasa looked him up and down from where she was half-sprawled over Connie’s feet. She pursed her lips. “It’s fine, make yourself welcome,” she said. “I’m Mikasa. Marco’s best friend and Eren’s babysitter.”

“Eren?” Armin brightened up at another name he recognised. His eyes then locked onto Eren in a heartbeat. “Hey! I wasn’t sure you’d be here, well I guessed you would be because of Marco, but…” He frowned. “Why are you hiding behind a sofa?”

Eren stopped dead. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, and before Marco could mouth a suggestion to him, he said, “I was looking for my glasses.” It came out sounding more like a question.

“You don’t wear glasses,” Marlow shouted unhelpfully.

“Don’t tell me how to live my life, Freudenberg!”

Armin, to Marco’s relief, just laughed. It was soft, like he didn’t want to startle Eren out of hiding just yet. “It’s nice to see you. I thought you were only snappy with Keith, but it seems I misjudged you.”

Eren still looked like he wanted to jump out of a window. He settled instead for a small whine of a response. Armin blinked at him. “Uh… what?”

Marco was struggling not to laugh at the way Eren started to lean against the sofa with as much hip arching action as he could get away with in his only-tipsy state. “I am maybe a little bit of an asshole sometimes,” was his eloquent reply. “But I don’t mean to be, I guess, I mean I think, I…er…” His voice trailed off. Marco wanted to slap him.

“Well, sometimes it’s justified. So I guess you’re not as much of as asshole as you think you are.” Armin _winked_ and then wandered over to the group, all smiles and innocence. It was a smart move on Armin’s part- Marco was sure Eren would have either made a dying whale noise in an attempt at a mating call or jumped him if he hadn’t. “So, how do you all know each other?” Armin asked, the polite smile falling back into place.

And it was as though he had always been a part of them. In that instant, he just slotted into the group with his smiles and stories, and soon the stories had people laughing. Armin was just the sort of person that knew exactly what to say to make everyone comfortable; he was no miracle worker, but he just exuded a calm and trusting demeanour that made everything so easy. Sure enough, he was soon in a deep discussion with Marlow about mechanics and how it was being disregarded in the modern day and age. Eren, meanwhile, stayed behind the sofa, making a noise akin to a deflating car tire in distress.

Marco kept an eye on Jean for the first few hours of the evening. He was still a little hesitant with all of the people around him, but Ymir was doing a pretty good job of distracting him. For someone who insulted him when they first met, she was actually getting on pretty well with him; Marco thought he even saw her laugh at one point at a feeble joke he made. But what really got him was how confused Jean was. He looked genuinely concerned that Ymir was interested in whatever they were talking about, and looked even more startled when Connie chipped in a little later on. He had expected the world to be against him for so long that now it wasn’t, it was strange.

Marco felt the ache in his chest start up afresh, and he looked at the bottle of wine Mikasa had bought. _Don’t mix_ , he reminded himself, _that’s when you get bad and we don’t want that._ The ache only grew stronger when he saw the look of relief in Jean’s eyes when Connie sidled closer and started talking to him about an art history course he’d done before university. “Fuck it,” Marco whispered to himself, and grabbed the bottle by the neck. He would do anything to blot out the ache that sat like a goblin on his chest, poking and taunting him about _you said there wouldn’t be a next time, you promised yourself you wouldn’t…_

Marco took a swig.

Fuck it.

Fuck. It.

Soon, those were the only two words his barely functioning brain was able to discern. It wasn’t even midnight and they were quickly running out of alcohol. He wasn’t sure where Jean was, but all he knew was that he was slumped on the sofa with Eren flopped over him mumbling some sort of nonsense about it not being fair that Thomas wasn’t there. “I mean, what did he have to go an’ die for?” Marco demanded, though it came out like a whimper only Eren could hear.

“I know, man, it sucks,” Eren said from around his bellybutton area.

“S’not very considerate of him is what it is.” Marco pouted as he lay on his back and tried to stop the room spinning. “I miss him when I’m drunk.”

“Me too,” Eren squeaked. He was further up Marco’s body now, wriggling up to keep his balance.

“I miss dancin’ with him like an idiot.”

“Mmm.”

“Miss actin’ like a fucking…fucking _kid_ , y’know?”

“Yup.”

Marco scrunched up his face even more. “I miss him fuckin’ me up the ass.”

There was a crash that seemed fuzzy in his mind. It took him a moment to realise that Eren had fallen off the sofa. “Jesus fucking _Christ,_ Marco, you can’t say that!” Eren hissed.

“I DO, THOUGH.”

“People are fuckin’ looking, shut up.”

“Owww,” someone groaned from underneath Eren. “Get your fat arse off my head, Jaeger.”

“You love it,” Eren remarked coolly whilst he moved away, the angrily muttering prisoner turning out to be Marlow. Marco wasn’t sure if anyone was as drunk as he was, but if he kept it together for long enough he could pull off being sober. Probably. He just had to stop letting the memories of the last time he got well and truly fucked into his head. He felt the heat travelling up his neck. _Oh, no._

“What are you girls talking about?” Ymir asked, sitting on Marco’s lap and glaring at Eren. Ymir was one of those who couldn’t handle her drink either, but Marco was still sure that if he popped a boner now with her sitting on him, he wouldn’t have much of one left once she was done. It killed the mood his drunken mind was trying to set, at any rate.

“Marco’s talking about seeeex,” Eren whined.

“Ew,” Marlow said.

“Shuuuut the fuck up.”

Marco let out a sigh. “I shotgunned with Thomas the night I lost my virginity to him,” he mumbled.

Eren frowned. “Hey, wait, I thought you lost your virginity to Mikasa when you were sixteen.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Eren.”

“He did,” Mikasa cut in, resting her chin on her knee as she watched them. “We lost our virginities to each other. We would have done it earlier, but Marco was adamant he’d go out legal.”

“Right on,” Marco thought fit to add to the conversation.

“Get him some water,” Mikasa ordered to the first person getting up.

Marco rolled over onto his side and let out a groan. The room moved too quickly for him- or maybe he was going too slowly?- and he felt the familiar need to throw up. “Gerroff me,” he instructed Ymir, all for staggering towards the bathroom on his own, but then he felt an arm around him that slowly pulled him up to a sitting position. He frowned, mumbled Mikasa’s name, but then saw who it was who came into view. “J-Jhnn?” he managed to get out.

“No, it’s me, the fuckin’ tooth fairy. C’mere.” Jean’s voice was softened by the beer he’d been drinking, but it sounded a lot more sober than Marco would have liked. When he came into his vision, it wasn’t too close, like he was holding back something. In retrospect, Marco was sure it was because he was worried that he was going to be thrown up on, but he just blinked dizzily up at him. “Drink some water, you idiot,” Jean said, pressing the cool glass to Marco’s lips. “Sasha told me you haven’t drank so much in a year, so this is real fuckin’ smart, ain’t it?”

Marco drank obediently, not letting his eyes leave Jean’s as he gulped down the water. He drank like it was the most precious liquid in the world. After a while, he saw the heat rising in Jean’s pale cheeks under his gaze, and wanted more than anything to reach up and touch those cheeks to feel just how hot they were.  But he didn’t dare.

When he tried to pull away, Jean pushed the glass insistently to his lips. “No. All of it.”

“So demanding,” Marco pouted after he took the last gulp.

“Was learning to be a nurse, remember?” Jean shrugged. “I don’t want you fucking poisoning yourself and throwing up everywhere.”

Marco bit his lip and sagged back into the material of the sofa. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled. “You must hate me.”

Jean looked a lot more alert at that. “I what?”

“H-hate me…”

“No, I don’t, Marco. You are the last person on earth who I could hate.” Marco didn’t move when Jean brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. “Just fuckin’ take care of yourself, alright? I’m having a good time and I want you to have a good time too.”

“Y-you are?” Marco blinked slowly, like every movement was an effort.

Jean smiled. “Yes, I’m having a good time. Armin used to go to my university. I haven’t seen him in years. And all your friends, they’re… they’re good people.”

Marco flushed and knotted his hands in the sofa material beneath him, if only to stop himself from flinging his arms around Jean and not letting him go. He nodded. “I told you they were…”

“I know, I know. But… I’m glad you convinced me to stay. Honestly.” Jean’s smile softened to a degree Marco hadn’t seen before. He assumed it was something to do with the alcohol swimming through his system, but it made his blush increase regardless. “Maybe you are superhuman after all, huh? Getting someone like me to stick around.”

This was too hard. Marco had drank to deafen the ache in his chest, but instead it was spreading, tightening its chokehold around his ribcage and crushing his lungs with its power. He wanted to do so many things, but he knew he couldn’t. He felt too _warm_ , too _content,_ for it to be any good. He let his eyes wander down to Jean’s lips, pale and chapped, and he felt that same ache twist into a full on _stab_.

_Oh, hell no._

Marco launched himself off the sofa, dragging Jean back with him and nearly making him fall over backwards as he shrieked, “MIKASA I NEED YOU.”

He heard her disembodied voice ask, “In a sexual way, or…?”

“COME HERE.”

Jean staggered backwards, a little startled, and ended up falling into Armin, who let out a soft “oh!” of surprise and steadied him with a small chuckle. Jean gave Marco a confused look mingled with a bit of hurt, and Marco felt even worse. The look was gone in an instant, however, replaced with the usual scowl he had, and he turned to talk to Armin in low tones. Marco let out a small whimper and rubbed his arm, standing in the middle of the room like a scolded schoolboy until someone took hold of his arm and towed him away. He kept his eyes cast to the floor as he walked, the horrible clash of emotion really not helping matters, and when he looked up- “You’re not Mikasa,” he frowned.

“You really fuckin’ depend on Mikasa when you’re drunk, don’tcha Twinkle?” Ymir. He should have known. “C’mon, you’re having more water, you look like you’re ready to drop and it’s not even midnight yet, ya dirty stop out.” She led him over to the kitchen area and gave him another pint of water. She wasn’t as gentle as Jean. “Drink it, you fuckin’ loser,” she ordered, and Marco was quick to obey her, glugging the water and wincing as it hit his too-warm stomach like a kick in the guts. His vision wasn’t swimming so much anymore, but only time would tell if it helped at all. “Mikasa’s busy trying to talk Eren out of humping blondie’s leg, she’s a wee bit busy right now,” she said. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

He sighed, clutching the glass like it was a lifeline. “I just… she was right.” He stared at the floor like it held the answers to everything. “She knew it. _Fuck._ ”

“What?”

He looked back up slowly so he didn’t dislodge his now steady line of sight. He blinked at her, just as slow. “I gotta _fuck_ _something_ , Ymir.”

Ymir gave him a strange look. “Well don’t fuckin’ look at me, the first time I saw a dick I was fourteen and I punched the damn thing.”

“No, not you.” Marco sighed and slumped against the side of the sink and stared over at the group. In the midst of it all, Jean was sat next to Sasha laughing at something she’d said, Claudine reaching for him from Connie’s arms.

Ymir followed his gaze too easily. She exhaled her breath in a slow hiss. “Ah, shit.”

“Exactly.”

Ymir’s eyes narrowed as they both stared at Jean. “He ain’t _bad_ looking for a guy. Looks like I could pick my teeth with him, but aside from that. Looks like he’d fall apart on you, though. Bet he screams when he creams.”

“Ymir!”

She snorted and wrapped an arm around his neck, yanking him in so close he could smell the cologne she’d evidently pinched from someone. It smelt good. “Lad, you’re in deep shit,” she stated, “but you ain’t alone. Everyone pines for something.”

“I’m gonna fuck the counter if I keep this up,” Marco whined, trying to casually slither a hand down to check that the tightness in his jeans wasn’t that obvious. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d chosen to wear his tighter pair for the evening. He sucked in a breath and tried not to think about the very thing Ymir had suggested. He tried not to wonder what Jean sounded like when he moaned, whether it was stuttered out behind gritted teeth or openly whimpered and _this was not helping the problem, this was the opposite of helping the problem._

Ymir glanced at him again, and then to Marco’s horror her eyes wandered south. They widened. “Aw, fuck no.”

“Help me,” Marco wailed.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.” Ymir stood in front of him, blocking him from view as she tried to look for Mikasa. Marco peeked over her shoulder, so red he was surprised he had enough blood to rush to both parts of his body, and saw her trying to shepherd Eren away from an oblivious Armin. He was surprised Armin could still talk and not hear Eren’s complaints.

“Mikasaaa, pleaaase, I need to let him fuck me just a little bitttt.”

“No, Eren.”

“But I want my legs around his neck!”

“Eren, for fuck’s sake, this is why I don’t let you drink.”

“OI, MIKASA,” Ymir shouted across the room. “Marco has a problem only you can solve!”

Mikasa’s head jerked around at an almost inhuman speed, and she gritted her teeth. “Oh for fuck’s _sake_ ,” he saw her mouth, and she hooked Eren in a headlock under her right arm before striding over to them, her own step a little wobbly from the drink she’d consumed. Armin couldn’t ignore that; Marco noticed the way he watched with a mixture of concern and amusement at the way Eren squawked under Mikasa’s arm. Jean glanced up too, his eyes flashing with something Marco thought might have been anger. _He was hot when he was angry. He was hot when he was sad. He was hot whatever he felt._ He bit his lip and tried not to meet his gaze.

“What the hell is it now?” Mikasa said, cuffing Eren around the head when he muttered something about wanting to suck on Armin’s ear.

Eren answered before Ymir, seeing as his eyes were naturally at the right height anyway. “Marco’s got a boner,” he sang.

“Shut upppp,” Marco hissed, glancing up at Jean with a mortified expression. Thankfully, Jean wasn’t paying attention anymore. He felt his chest loosen just an inch.

Mikasa just groaned. “Oh for goodness sake, you’re not fifteen.”

“I need to fuck something,” Marco stated.

“I volunteer,” Eren mumbled. He got three rounds of ‘shut up’ from different sources. He pouted. “Look, it’s not gonna go away, so just… get rid of it,” he mumbled.

Marco blinked. “How?” He peered down at himself and huffed. “This is all your fault, you piece of shit bastard. You didn’t care about _anything_ until a week ago and now you’re all up for saying hello, you fuckin’ _prick._ ”

“Would ya stop talking to your dick? It ain’t gonna respond even if it is your second brain,” Ymir said.

Mikasa rolled her eyes. “The things I do for you two,” she muttered, throwing Eren at Ymir. She pointed a threatening finger in his direction. “Ymir, you look after Eren. He goes an inch closer to Armin with one of his hare-brained schemes to get him into bed, you have my permission to hit him.”

“Hey!”

“It’s the only way you’ll learn. And you,” she took Marco by the scruff of his neck and dragged him away, “you’re coming with me.”

Marco had no choice but to be towed with her, and after a discreet ten minute stint in the bathroom he came out a little less flushed but still very much ashamed. Mikasa stood guard outside until he pushed the door open, and she arched a brow at him. Marco didn’t even know how to respond- what could he possibly do? He opted for a conscious ruffle of his hair and a sniff. “M’sorry,” he mumbled afterwards.

“You owe me so many dinners after this, Bodt,” she said. She reached up to ruffle his hair too, sending it so flyaway he knew it would be impossible to tame back to how it was. He deserved it. “You feeling better?” He caught the smile in her voice quick enough to know that he wasn’t going to be found in a gutter somewhere the next morning.

“I feel like a disgusting human being,” he admitted, “but… yeah, I do… don’t feel so drunk either.”

“Happy days. Now, c’mon, I think I saw Eren dragging the table into the living room.”

“Oh dear god.”

Sure enough, Eren had dragged the table into the centre of the room amid bouts of coughing laughter from everyone watching. It was the one Marco and Sasha saved for the days when they usually had guests round, and it was a little wobbly on its legs. That, apparently, hadn’t stopped Christa hopping onto it and peering down at everyone a little nervously, swaying from side to side as she tried to get her drunken bearings. “Right, right, right,” she called out over the laughter, “You wanted me to show you, so I’m doin’ it! Shut up and let me work!”

Marco sidled towards Ymir, who was stood looking a little dazed. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Ymir gave him a lazy smile. “Christa dances,” she said. She sounded far away.

Marco frowned. “Dances…?”

“She dances in the Green Unicorn Club,” Jean answered for him. Marco jumped at how close he was; it was like he’d appeared out of nowhere.  “She’s been doing it for a year or so. Doesn’t really strip, she’s more burlesque than anything else. She doesn’t tell many people, ‘cept when she’s drunk. Then she won’t stop going on about it.”

“Is it safe?” Marco asked. “I mean… that club’s pretty up-market, but…”

Jean shrugged. “It’s safe enough. Christa doesn’t see it as a big deal. If the old perverts’ll pay mountains to watch her dance, seems like a pretty good call.” Christa was shedding her cardigan, throwing it into the small crowd she’d accumulated. Ymir dived to catch it.

Marco rolled his eyes, sober enough to realise that Ymir was too drunk by now. “Eren used to dance, you know.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “He did?”

Marco shrugged. “Money was money. There was a gay bar, just off the main plaza when we were students. It’s probably still there, actually. He used to dance there for tips.” His face fell when he remembered what _exactly_ Eren was spending his money on. Sometimes, there was a problem with getting too much money from a job no one else wanted.

Clearly, Eren had been boasting about it too, because he was trying to scramble up on the other end of the table (and was being held back by a frustrated Mikasa) and was only let go when Christa raised her head and called out, “Come on, then, Jaeger, let’s see what you got!” Eren grinned and swung onto the table in another moment, cracking his knuckles and trying to throw an arrogant smile over at Armin. Marco sighed. _His peacocking is going to end in tears one day._

“Music, maestro!” Christa ordered, and Connie scrambled to hit his dying boombox into submission. When the song crackled into life, Marco snorted when he recognised the opening to ‘ _Dirrty’._ Did anyone he know have a good music taste? He doubted it.

Connie roared with laughter at the boombox’s selection, but everyone else was glued to the innocent looking girl on the table above them. Christa’s eyes glinted as the main beat started to kick in, and a dry smirk came across her face that Marco hadn’t ever seen on her before as she started nodding her head to the beat, counting the steps, the movements. She was concentrating remarkably hard, for how drunk she was. Sasha started off the round of clapping to keep her in time, and Marco found himself joining in. And then, out of the blue, she strode up the length of the table towards Eren, with Eren doing the same from his end. They met in the middle, circled each other in an almost predatory fashion, and then it started. Christa spun away, Eren made a far more wobbly retreat, and they just started dancing. Marco had seen Eren dance before, but he never did get over just how supple his body was. Every movement he made was liquid and flowing, and so _smooth_. Christa was rolling her body like she had the spine of a cat, her hips rolling in tight circles to the music’s tempo whilst she let one hand loose in her pale hair just to mess it up. She hollowed her spine in the mimic of a slow, taunting grind and Marco was pretty sure he heard Ymir whimper.

Ymir _never_ whimpered.

Not to be outdone, Eren decided that rolling back as far as he was able was a good idea to gain whatever imaginary points he was trying to score off of Christa, and as he arched his body back his shirt rode up to bare the smallest and most teasing amount of torso ever. Marco jumped at Jean’s derisive snort from beside him. He kept forgetting he was there. “Who’s he trying to impress?” Jean asked.

“The guy who runs support groups.”

“What?!”

“It’s a long story.”

Marco still wasn’t that comfortable with the idea of Jean being so close- who _knew_ what he might try to do- but the presence was also a little nice. It was keeping his mind off of Thomas, at least, so that was one less problem to worry about. But the room was still a little unsteady, and though the urge to fuck something was definitely sated for the moment, it didn’t mean he was in the clear. He was still far, far too drunk. And he always made stupid decisions when he was drunk.

That was probably why, when Eren pulled him up onto the table and demand he dance with him, that he did exactly that. “Come on, I taught you shit! Do it!” Eren demanded.

Marco was breathless with laughter, and he was still giggling like an idiot when Christa pulled the band holding his mockery of a ponytail in place on his head and told him to shake it out. He shook his head like a shaggy dog ridding itself of water, and was turned around to face Eren. His face was completely straight, and for a moment Marco wondered if Eren was as drunk as he thought he was. “Look at me, and do as I do,” Eren said. Marco nodded. The clapping had increased in volume with his inclusion, and as they started moving he was sure he heard Ymir whoop for him. He started shuffling in time to Eren’s liquid movements, but the more he moved, the more he realised that his body wanted to be dancing. It felt lighter and more awake than usual, and he decided to make the most of it. Eren gave a husky laugh as Marco started to sweep his hips from side to side in a lazy, slow movement. “That all you got for me, Bodt?” he asked.

Marco shook his head childishly, poking his tongue out from between his teeth. “Mmm, no I got more.”

Eren chuckled. “Wanna share with the group?”

Marco raised both brows at him. “You ready for it?”

“Don’t get cocky, Bodt.”

Marco smirked and stepped a little closer, invading Eren’s space with a wicked grin, and started to roll his hips in those perfect, loose body rolls that Eren had taught him all those years ago. The more he danced, the more he arched his back and stuck out his ass and rolled his hips forward in that same fluid motion Eren had. He felt like he was flowing with an almost electric energy. He felt like every pore of his skin was tingling with it. He wasn’t sure if it was down to the drink or the dancing- he settled on a mixture of both. Eren was mirroring his smile as they danced, mimicking his movements yet making sure that he was far enough away to not be completely grinding on him. Still, the brush of friction every now and again wasn’t exactly doing wonders for Marco’s lust levels. He tugged a hand through his hair absently to try to brush it off, but that just earned a wolf-whistle from somewhere in the group.

When the song faded out, Eren stepped away and the spell was broken. Marco was brought back to earth, and the fact that he was standing on the table having attempting to out-dance Eren. He just chuckled, the remains of alcohol still clinging to his veins letting him have that liberty, and Eren hoisted his arm into the air. “Get this man a drink!” he cried amid cheers from them all. Before Marco knew it, a drink was being shoved into his hands by an over-enthusiastic Connie and Eren grabbed one off the side. “A toast!” he crowed. “To Thomas Wagner! If you’re watching us somewhere, I hope you have a raging boner at the fact your boyfriend can still shake that THANG!” Marco choked on his drink halfway through, and made sure to chug the rest of it for good measure.

“EREN.”

“Whaaat, I’m pretty sure that ain’t a _bad_ thing to say!”

A moment later Eren was calling for more volunteers, whilst Christa was led on her stomach talking to Ymir with the selfsame smirk on her face. Ymir looked as though she was about to propose marriage. When Marco jumped down from the table, his place immediately taken by an even more energetic Connie, he noticed that Jean was missing. He felt his heart sink. Maybe he’d gone too far. But fun was fun, and Jean hadn’t seemed that bothered by Christa. What made him any different?

He slumped down beside Armin, convinced he wouldn’t let it get to him, and fixed on the same old smile. He wasn’t going to go on a wild goose chase around his apartment looking for the only person he really felt conscious in front of. He had to have more self-restraint than that. Even if his fingers were twitching to get a hold of Jean’s hand, and they were getting hot by the thought of them tangling together with his own, innocent or otherwise. Marco shook himself. _Ugh._ “You alright?” he asked Armin, the ice-breaker of all ice-breakers to try to distract himself.

Armin nodded a touch too energetically for a sober person. “Oh, yes! I’m having a great time. Your friends are… pretty lively.” He laughed. “Not what I’m used to, I have to admit.”

“They’re an acquired taste,” Marco admitted with a similar laugh, “but I love them. They’re decent guys, and we look out for each other when no one else will.”

“I can see that.” Armin smiled. “Your friend… Eren… he’s in good hands.”

Marco snorted. “There are far better hands he could be in.” _Or far better hands he wanted to be in…_

“Maybe, but you’re all what he needs.” Armin’s smile felt a bit more genuine when he looked back over to Eren and Christa dancing together with a feverishly flapping Connie in the centre. “He’s a very good dancer, too. Did you say he used to dance in a bar?”

This was it. This was the moment he had to wingman as much as he could, all in the name of Eren’s happiness. He could do it. Bigging up Eren to himself was a full-time job, so bigging him up to a stranger would be a walk in the park. “Yeah,” he said as Eren slid off the table and strode off with some purpose- presumably to the bathroom. “He used to drive all the guys there crazy. He was a massive flirt back then- not so much now, think his confidence has been knocked, but he just has that way with people. Everyone wants to either punch him or be with him. He only left his job because they wanted to cut his pay.” He cleared his throat. “You ever been? To the bar. S’called KingsRose.”

Armin shook his head. “Didn’t go out much as a Fresher, was too terrified of the outdoors. But I get it: people need to feel safe somewhere. We all need somewhere to hide from the bigots and the ignorant.”

“So you’re gay then?” Was Marco’s next, excellently-put question. He cringed the second it came out of his mouth.

Armin, thankfully, just laughed. “To the chagrin of my parents, yeah.”

Marco whistled out a sigh. “I know the feeling.” All of a sudden, he didn’t feel like trying to matchmake.

They only got a few more seconds of polite conversation before Jean stormed back into the room, his hair sticking up in all the wrong angles and a look of thunder on his scarlet face. Eren was charging after him, shouting after him, “You know I’m right! You’re running away because I’m right!”

“Drop it, Jaeger!” Jean snarled over his shoulder. He had that wild look about him, the look that signalled that he felt cornered, and Marco immediately shuffled to stand. He didn’t quite manage it, and flopped boneless back into his seat.

“No, I won’t fucking drop it! You can’t keep fucking lying, Jean! It’ll come back to bite you in the ass!” Eren replied.

“There’s nothing to lie about,” Jean hissed, wheeling around on his heel and slamming Eren backwards into the nearest wall. “Don’t you _ever_ say that!”

“Why, because unlike one of us, I tell the truth?” Eren scoffed. “You can brood and whine all you want, but you’re still the same snot-nosed kid who left me on my fucking own, aren’t you?”

That did it. It snapped Jean, like it would snap anyone, but this was a bottled anger, and Marco could tell in the way Jean’s eyes blazed with fury. “Don’t you DARE tell me what I am!” he roared, grabbing hold of Eren’s shirt and yanking him up to his eye level. With a yelp, Marco and Mikasa flew to their feet in one swift motion. “Don’t you DARE stand there and tell me you know me! We were kids, you fucking idiot! Kids! Did you really think I had any choice?!”

“You lied then and you’re lying now!” Eren hissed, his two-toned glare only increasing. “Won’t your _niece_ be disappointed?”

Marco saw Jean lunge just in time. He grabbed hold of the closed fist and gave Jean a shove backwards, standing in between them with a cry of, “That’s enough!” Mikasa managed to grab hold of Eren before he could try to launch himself at Jean in retaliation, and that was where they stayed.

Jean staggered back, chasing his breath like he’d been running, and his eyes slowly grew wider under Marco’s glare. He turned from aggressor to victim in an instant, like he hadn’t realised what he was doing. Something physically hurt in Marco at having to watch the anger and spirit vanish in Jean like it was never there in the first place. Jean stuffed both hands in his pockets, saying nothing. _Doing_ nothing. He refused to meet Marco’s eye. “Marco…” he mumbled finally.

“See? He’s a liar, Marco! He _lies_ and he _fakes_ because that’s all he fucking knows!” Eren shouted from behind him.

Jean didn’t even look able to fight back. It was like he didn’t have the energy to. He just twitched at the words hurled at him as though they were physical, like he was a dog that was having rocks thrown at it. He let his eyes flick up to meet Marco’s for a moment, and they looked so wide and lost. He shook his head an inch. Just an inch. That inch was all Marco needed to see. Jean looked _terrified._ Marco had seen the look before, back when he’d first found out about Claudine, and the feelings came rushing back. _The confusion. The sympathy. The **ache**. _

“Eren,” he said softly, “leave it.”

He didn’t let his eyes leave Jean’s, trying to silently console him. Trying to tell him that it was okay, that whatever he was so scared of someone finding out, it didn’t matter.

But then Eren said something Marco didn’t expect.

“Jean doesn’t have a sister.”

Marco froze. Jean’s eyes, if possible, grew wider. Suddenly, everything seemed to stop. Marco couldn’t hear anyone else; it was like the four of them were in a cushioned room, with nothing from the outside world able to pierce through. Everything was muted and still, and Marco was aware of his own pulse racing. All the warmth he had in his body had gone. He just stared at Jean. “Jean,” he managed to say after a minute or so of staring. “W-what is he talking about?”

“You heard me.” Eren’s voice cut in, crude and slashing. “He hasn’t got a sister. He’s an only child. Think I’d know if there was another one of him in care with me.”

Jean was rigid. Marco wasn’t even sure he was breathing; he was so still that he wondered if he had given up on it altogether. He just stood there, staring over Marco’s shoulder at Eren behind him, a mix of emotions passed across his face all at once. There was anger, betrayal and hurt all jumbled into one, and his jaw clenched hard to stop him from trembling. It didn’t work. Jean let a half-sob break through his stony exterior, and when Marco stepped forward it seemed to be the movement he needed to jar him into life. He stumbled away with a shake of his head and a small, “no,” even when Marco reached a hand out to him. Jean did the only thing he knew how to do. He bolted. He grabbed the handle of Claudine’s car seat where she was sleeping (and had been for the past hour), and that was it. Gone. Without a drop of explanation or apology or farewell. He just left. The door was slammed so hard it rattled on its hinges and made everyone in the room jump.

Marco stared furiously after him. He couldn’t believe Jean would just leave like that without a word. He could understand he was angry, he was scared and he didn’t want to be around Eren anymore, but he had bolted from _Marco_. That wasn’t how it worked. All traces of alcohol drained from his bloodstream as the weight of what had just happened hit him. _Jean didn’t have a sister. There was no sister for Claudine to go home to. Jean was more on his own than he ever realised._ That was what drove him to the door, and to his black coat hanging off the peg beside it. His shaking hands made putting the coat on difficult, but he wasn’t going to let it slow him down. For once, he was letting his instinct take control.

“Marco, you can’t go out there,” Mikasa said, rushing to him as he wrestled one arm through the sleeve. “It’s New Year’s Eve, there are people everywhere and you know what this side of town is like.”

“Jean doesn’t.” Marco grabbed for his scarf. “And he’s got Claudine with him.”

“Marco, did you hear what Eren said?” Mikasa took his arm when he pulled the door open.

“I heard.”

“He’s lied.”

“I don’t care,” Marco said, nudging her aside as he stepped through the doorway. “People like Jean lie because they have to. Something’s going on, and I need to find out what.”

“You barely know him,” she protested, still holding onto his arm as he walked out of the apartment. “Marco, honestly, what good is tracking him down going to do? He’s angry. Feelings are still raw. You can’t assume he’ll want to talk to you.”

Marco paused. She was right. Jean might not want to talk. But he had to be there to listen, just in case he did. He thought he knew Jean better than that, anyway. “Take care of Eren,” was all he said, and before she could say anything to change his mind, he took off.

He knew Jean had probably taken the lift, but he took the stairs two at a time just to feel as though he was getting somewhere. The lift was already empty when he got to the bottom, and he burst out of the complex doors with a wheezing breath. ‘ _Don’t overdo it’ the doctors said_ , he heard a cruel voice reminding him. _It’s got nothing to do with your physical health but they still want you to take it easy._

Marco ignored his inhibitions and took off at a jog, knowing the way to Jean’s house pretty well by now. There weren’t as many people on the streets as Mikasa warned there would be, but some did lurch towards him with drunken well-wishes and cheers of welcoming in the New Year. Marco did his best to avoid them, but once or twice he did get swept up with their too- joyful celebrations. He couldn’t see a figure with a car seat anywhere. Only when he charged around the corner did he catch sight of Jean. He wasn’t jogging, exactly, but he was keeping his pace quick and snappy, a hand to his face and the other holding onto the car seat in a vice like grip. Marco sprinted to catch up, his muscles complaining at the sudden exercise, and he noticed Jean stiffen as his pounding footsteps drew nearer. “Jean!” he called out.

Jean whirled around with the look of a cornered animal. His eyes looked redder than normal. Oh god, was he crying? Marco put a hand up, trying to get his breath back as he ground to a halt. “Please… don’t run off…” he tried to wheeze.

“Why are you following me?” Jean’s voice was hoarse from shouting. He ran a shaking hand through his hair just to mess it up further, and sniffled as he did it. “W-why don’t you just go b-back to your life, Ponytail? Huh? G-go back to your apartment and your friends and your drink and just l-let me leave you alone. It’s what you need.”

“I don’t want you to leave me alone.” Marco frowned as he finally recovered from his run, though he still heaved out struggling breaths. “Need has nothing to do with it.”

Jean shook his head. “I am an asshole, Marco! I come into people’s lives and I wreck them. That’s what I do. Every time I try, I just…” He curled the hand in his hair into a fist and yanked at some of his own hair in frustration as he hissed.

“Jean, it’s alright, Eren would say anything to get you annoyed, it’s what he does-”

“He wasn’t lying!” Jean exploded. “Eren was telling the truth! I’m the fucking liar, alright?” He sagged at the outburst and gave his hair another angry yank. “I don’t want you to forgive me, f- _fuck_ it wouldn’t surprise me if you hated me…”

Marco shook his head. “Jean, people lie. People hide things from others. But they do it for good reasons.” He knew that if it was any other person, he wouldn’t believe it. He knew that if it was any other person, he would be angry. But his stupid, hopeless romantic side was winning the battle over logic, and he was letting it do whatever the hell it liked. After all, he wasn’t the most honest of people either. “They do it because they’re scared, or they’re not ready to accept it themselves, but it comes out in the end. It always does. But nobody can make anything okay if they only know half the story.” Jean’s breath drifted across the sky to him. It rushed out of him in a tiny cloud of dragonbreath, and as it floated towards Marco and mingled with his own cloud of breath, he took a step forward. “Tell me the rest of the story, Jean,” he urged gently. “It’s alright.” 

Jean took a step back, looked down at Claudine, shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. He looked back up, and those feral amber eyes caught Marco’s own. “What do you wanna know?” he asked in a small voice, shifting his weight from foot to foot to stave off the shakes that Marco see he was wracked with.

Marco swallowed painfully. He knew he had to ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but he needed the truth. “What did Eren mean?”

Jean let out a trembling sigh. “What he said. I don’t… I don’t have a sister.”

As they spoke, Marco could hear the chants of the people in their houses either side of the street they stood in, outside, the homeless in the alleyways near them. They were counting down. New Year had come upon them in a sudden rush, and now he was waiting to hear from Jean. He couldn’t have timed it better.

_Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…_

Jean cleared his throat. “Claudine’s not my niece, Marco.”

Marco nodded, jaw clenched and everything hanging on every syllable out of Jean’s mouth.

_Five, four…_

“I should have told you when you met her, seeing as you’re so good with her an’ all.”

_Three, two…_

“Marco…” Jean’s eyes flickered up to his once again, and stayed there.

Marco’s breath shuddered in his lungs.

“She’s my daughter.”

_One_.

* * *

They walked back to Jean’s house under a hail of colour from the fireworks exploding overhead. Marco didn’t think it a good idea to try to drag Jean back to his apartment, as Jean was in no fit state to go anywhere near Eren without punching his lights out. They got through the door just as the lights and noise and tumultuous cries of ‘Happy New Year!’ began to die down, but Marco still felt stuck in a freeze-frame of the moment just before the year was called in. He wasn’t even sure he remembered how he reacted. He’d stood there for longer than he should have, definitely, just staring at Jean until his cheeks started to flush and his gaze wavered. He was sure he told him they would talk about it somewhere else, somewhere quieter, but that didn’t stop Jean’s words rotating around and around his head and prodding him like children on a merry go round.

_She’s my daughter. She’s my daughter. She’s my daughter._

Claudine started crying as they got in, and Jean let out a small groan as Marco shut the door behind them all. “Princess, come _on,_ don’t make things harder,” he complained, carrying her into the living room and unclipping her from the car seat. His voice sounded weak and tired. Jean hoisted her onto his shoulder and tried to rock her into submission, his comforting words falling on deaf ears as they trembled and quaked just as much as her crying. Marco wanted to offer to take her, but he had a feeling Jean would just hold her tighter and refuse to let go. And there they were, stood in a room with a single flickering bulb in the ceiling. How could they even begin? Marco cleared his throat, stopped, took a breath, stopped again. He settled for a soft, “Jean…”

“It’s not my fault.” Jean’s voice was still shaking. “I-It’s complicated, I didn’t know… we were just…”

Marco shook his head. “I never said it was your fault. Although, having a baby does take two.”

“S-smartass.” Jean paused, though he still shook one arm up and down to keep Claudine moving, before he said, “Wait here,” and strode out of the room. Marco heard his pounding footsteps on every creaky stair. He turned back to the empty room and washed a hand over his face. What was he getting into? He was in too deep, he knew he was, but he didn’t think there was much chance of clambering out now. But Jean was a _father,_ he had a _daughter._ It wasn’t just a sweet little baby that would eventually disappear into the realms of the close family like he’d thought back in the realms of the party. She was a part of the deal now, just as much as Jean was, and what terrified Marco was how he didn’t think it was such a bad deal at all. In fact, he was pretty sure he felt _relieved_ at the thought of not having to see Claudine go. _You’re a fucking idiot,_ his mind decided to clarify for him. He ran a hand through his hair, cursing himself, and waited for Jean to come back.

He didn’t have to wait long. Jean returned in a heartbeat, still jigging a snivelling Claudine in one hand and carrying a photo frame in the other. He handed it over to Marco wordlessly, and slumped down on the futon, eyes large and lost as Claudine steadily calmed to a gentle sniffle. “That’s her,” Jean sighed.

Marco looked down at the photo. It had a Jean he didn’t recognise on it, a Jean with no undercut and completely dark hair grinning at the camera with an arm slung loosely around a thoughtfully smiling girl. She had the same ash blonde hair as he had on top, though hers was a shade warmer and wavy to the root, and Marco recognised that Claudine got her elfin ears from her mother.They didn’t look more than seventeen in the picture, and when Marco looked up Jean answered his question for him. “That was when we just started dating, back when I was still learning to be a nurse. She worked.”

“Jean,” Marco began, “you don’t have to tell me all this…”

Jean shook his head like a child. “No!” he nearly shouted. He flinched at his own panic. The next few words were quieter, more subdued. “No, I… I do. I really do.” He scrubbed the back of his hand against his eyes to stave off the tears threatening to overspill. “Y-you need to know it, and ask questions, a-and… and then maybe…” His voice trailed off. He scrubbed at his eyes again. Claudine let out a little whimper on his shoulder.

Marco put a stopper in the rest of his protests.  He had told Jean he wanted to know the rest of the story back on the street because he wanted to know the truth. Now he knew where it was heading, he wasn’t sure he did. His eyes fell back on the photo. “Who is she?” he asked. His mouth felt dry.

Jean sighed. “Her name’s Hattie Dreyse, but she’d punch you if you called her that. Always called herself Hitch.” He paused. “ _I_ always called her Hitch.”

“H-how long were you-?”

“Two years. Two long years. S’complicated, but I guess we sorta rushed things a bit. Hitch was always so fucking intense, and I just got swept up in the whirlwind. She’s beautiful too, Marco, fuck you should see her. Got this whole vintage look about her like she’s walked out of a film in black and white, you know? Poor kid like me didn’t stand a chance.”

“She looks beautiful,” Marco noted, glancing back at Jean. Why did he feel so hollow? “Looks like you were a good couple.”

“My mam liked her. Guess I wanted to make her proud, too. I dunno, I was still a kid, I was an idiot. S-still am.” Jean seethed a little through his teeth when Claudine let out another wail to remind him that she was still around. Jean made a face and thrust her into Marco’s arms. “I n-need to make her a bottle.” He disappeared into the kitchen, rattled a few things around and came back running a hand through his hair and tugging at parts. _Another nervous tick_ , Marco recognised. The milk was heating up. Marco could hear the battered old microwave rumbling into life. “C-can you hold her for a bit? I need to-”

“It’s fine.” Marco made a soft shushing noise to Claudine, and though she still sniffled a little she grasped the finger he waggled in front of her and quietened. He watched Jean pace back and forth across the room like a caged panther, clapping one hand to his mouth as if he was about to vomit. He wanted to tell him not to push himself, not to go mad, to just calm down, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Jean was in his own headspace, and he would approach when Jean was ready for him. Jean took three paces of the room before he spoke again.

“I got Hitch pregnant just after I dropped out. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t… wasn’t something we planned. But we’d been having all these arguments, all these big arguments because of what I was like. How I _am._ ” Jean stopped dead at that, his shoulders hunched and the hand still trying to muffle his words like he was afraid of them touching the air. “She couldn’t take it, said she wanted to be with a real man who didn’t need to count to ten on days when he couldn’t step out the fucking _door_ without wanting to throw up, and I just…” he choked. “I made her sick. But then she got pregnant, and she wanted to keep it, and I thought that maybe it was a good thing. I thought that maybe it was what we needed, you know?” He laughed, but it was full of nothing but cold air. “Fuck knows what I was thinking. Hitch wanted me to name the baby, so I… I called her Claudine. S’my Gram’s name.” Marco guessed that ‘Gram’ meant ‘grandmother’.

He looked back to Claudine, who was staring right at him with the eyes he could see now were Jean’s- how could he have missed that before?- and his stomach twisted uncomfortably. “You didn’t make her sick, Jean,” he said.

“I make everyone sick!” Jean snapped. “Don’t you get it? I can’t have anyone near me, because I make them ill! I chew them up and spit them out and they don’t come back!”

_I’m coming back. I’ll come back for as long as you want me._ “Is that what happened to Hitch?” Marco asked. He couldn’t help it.

Jean made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and turned around. “I should’ve seen the warning signs. Should’ve seen the way she distanced herself from me and Claudine. Should’ve recognised she was going out way more than she usually did.”

Marco sighed. “She was seeing someone else,” he said.

Jean sniffed. Shuffled. Nodded. “About four someone elses, actually. At the same time.”

“Shit.”

“We had this big argument, s-she told me she didn’t regret it. T-that I’d never be half the man they were. And the things she said about Claudine, I couldn’t… I know it was in the heat of the moment, and she probably didn’t mean it, but…” He took a shuddering breath. Swiped at his eyes. Tried to focus. “That was when I left. I took Claudine, took my stuff, and fucking _ran_. To this place. And I haven’t… haven’t seen her since.”

“Shit,” Marco said again. He ran his free hand through his hair, keeping his eyes on Claudine. Jean had run because Hitch couldn’t handle him, or Claudine. He may have been the one who left, but she hadn’t tried to find him. Why anyone would want to abandon the baby on his chest was something Marco just couldn’t fathom. Claudine was a baby, sure: she did the annoying baby things like having to rely on someone and crying when she needed something, but that was what babies did. She didn’t have a choice in how she behaved, and neither, he thought, did Jean. Jean had gone through a lot, that much was clear, and he couldn’t just shed that emotional baggage like an old raincoat. It clung to his skin like a cheap cologne, and it wouldn’t come off easily, no matter how much he masked it. He’d been forced to grow up too far, too fast, and that was what prompted Marco to ask, “Jean… h-how old are you?” His voice cracked as it came out.

Jean lifted his eyes from the ground and stared at Marco. They were glassed over with the emotion he’d been taught was wrong to show. “Twenty,” he mumbled, his voice cracking with the threat of tears. “I’m twenty.”

That was what broke every ounce of restraint in Marco’s body. He got to his feet like a bullet, put Claudine down in her cot, and amid her infuriated sobbing wrapped his arms around Jean and pulled him tight to his chest. It was a painful hug. He hugged him so tight he was sure he was suffocating him, but he didn’t care. He wanted to hold him enough to let him feel the affection, the sympathy, the _care_ oozing out of every pore for him. “You’re twenty… G-God, you’re fucking… twenty years old… and you had to go through all that…” he mumbled into Jean’s shoulder. He felt Jean’s hands squeeze him back, and slowly but surely inch around his waist. Then they were clutching him right back, Jean’s body quaking with relief that he was being held and not abandoned, and Marco had to stop himself from crying right there and then. He couldn’t cry for Jean. It wasn’t his place to cry for him. But when he mumbled soft apologies into Jean’s hair, and then apologies for the apologies, he felt Jean’s floodgates finally break. And he was sobbing his heart out, sobbing all the pain of the last year away, and Marco just had to be there to moor him to the ground.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, but he knew that he tried to run his hands over every inch of Jean’s back to soothe him as he cried. It was long enough for the microwave to start beeping obnoxiously loudly five times before Jean started trying to pull away. “T-that’s Claudine’s bottle…” he mumbled weakly.

“I’ll get it,” Marco reassured him, giving him a parting squeeze before pulling away to fetch the bottle from the kitchen. His shirt was wet with Jean’s tears, and that knowledge made him scrub at his own eyes. This wasn’t fair. He couldn’t feel like this, not now, not after he knew what Jean had been through. Thinking he was a grumpy asshole for no reason was enough to convince himself that maybe liking him wouldn’t be such a bad idea, but this… he didn’t expect this. He hadn’t expected anything to come of pulling the guy away from a roaring bus, but here he was, stood in the guy’s kitchen trying not to cry after finding out he was a father at twenty. Marco had been twenty when everything he held dear was turned upside down. Maybe twenty was an unlucky number in Trost.

He grabbed his pill pot out of his pocket and let the rainbow rattle around in its prison. This was the only opportunity he would be able to take them- it was early, but it hardly mattered. So long as they weren’t late. He took them without so much as a cough, setting the glass of water down on the kitchen counter afterwards. He then took the bottle, screwed the lid on, and tried to steel himself to go back into the room. He needed to know his place. He had a place in Jean’s world, sure, but it wasn’t where he wanted to be. That didn’t matter; what mattered was that he was there for him, regardless of what was going on in his own head. It took him a few hasty breaths before he could walk out and face Jean again.

When he did, he saw Jean stood over by Claudine’s cot, talking to her in soft tones. Claudine was still crying, but it was hushed, like she had noticed her father’s mood and figured it wasn’t worth demanding too much of him. Jean’s eyes flickered up when Marco approached with the bottle, and they looked as soft as his voice despite being laden with tears. “Thanks,” he said. Marco had a feeling Jean meant more than just the bottle.

“That’s alright,” he said, passing the bottle to him once he had Claudine in his arms again. “What do you… what do you want me to do?”

Jean chewed on his lip. “What do _you_ want to do?” Marco realised that he hadn’t really been asked that before. But he knew the answer.

“I want to stay.” Marco wet his lips and glanced away after admitting it, thrusting his hands in his pockets. He wanted to hold him again. He wanted to tell him that even though things felt bad now, that they could get better if he only saw the opportunity. The last thing he wanted was to leave him on his own.

Jean seemed to consider it for a little while, the tear tracks still burning his cheeks. He gave him the slightest frown. “The heat’s gone out. I couldn’t pay the bill.”

Marco shook his head. “I don’t care.”

“They’ll all be wondering where you are.”

“I don’t care.”

“You could be having fu-”

“Jean.” Marco reached out to ruffle a hand through his hair- he knew he was allowed to go that far. “I want to stay here with you and Claudine. I’m not going to just walk away.”

Jean gulped audibly. “You’re not?”

“I’m not.” Marco tried out a smile. It didn’t feel too fake. “I promise.”

Jean gave him a tiny smile, and if Marco’s heart had enough blood left to bleed for him, it definitely wouldn’t have after seeing that. Jean showed him where the extra blankets were, and any pillows he had that weren’t too lumpy. If the heat was well and truly out, they would need all the blankets in the world. And there was only one bed- the futon. Jean suggested he sleep on the floor and Marco took the comfier option, but Marco refused to let him when there was definitely enough space on the futon for two. After Claudine had a warm meal in her belly, she fell asleep on Jean’s shoulder, making it easier for the two to set up the futon as she slept. “I hate New Year’s Eve,” Jean commented as they hauled another thick blanket onto the futon. “Gets me all fuckin’ emotional and shit. It’s stupid. Gets me spewing all sorts of shit.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Marco said, standing back to admire their handiwork. It looked more like a nest than a bed. _Perfect._ “It must be painful to talk about, but… I’m glad I know. Don’t try to apologise for telling me the truth, Jean.”

Jean waved a hand casually. “Yeah… yeah, I’m glad you know too. M’glad you know and you didn’t just get the fuck out of here like any sensible person would do.” Jean gave him a weak smirk. “Your being stupid paid off.”

Marco snorted. “Shut up. I’m the most sensible out of my friends, except maybe Mikasa.”

“Yeah, and your friends are all fucking insane.”

And just like that, everything was okay again. It was like Jean had let his feelings explode out of him and now they were out in the open he was a little giddy with the relief of it all. Marco knew it was only a temporary ‘okay’, that the next morning the gravity of the situation would probably hit Jean and he would draw away for a little while; but, for now, he would take the temporary ‘okay’ if it meant that he got to see another of Jean’s conscious smiles.

The smile faded a fraction when Marco flopped onto the futon and curled the nest of blankets over him to trap the heat inside. Jean stood at the edge, wringing the end of his T-shirt like a scared teenager. Marco frowned. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just… haven’t shared a bed in a while.” Jean shrugged, “Feels weird.”

Marco rolled as far away as he could, and raised a brow. “I won’t come near you if you don’t want me to.”

Jean scoffed. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen, it’s fuckin’ freezing.” He hesitated a beat longer before giving in and ridding himself of his jeans (at this, Marco coloured considerably and wriggled down into the depths of blanket to hide his eyes), giving Claudine one last look before turning back to the futon. “I get hot sometimes,” he defended as he spotted Marco’s gaze, and Marco was glad he’d misinterpreted his expression as a different kind of shock- it made things easier to explain, after all. He dragged the covers over him and pulled them up to his chin, shuddering at the chill that swept against his bare legs almost immediately. “Look, if we’re gonna share this thing you have to get closer because otherwise I am going to turn into an ice pop.”

Marco bit his lip and shuffled closer, trying to ignore any inappropriate thoughts about ice pops, and rested his head on the very edge of the pillow Jean was using. “Better?” he asked.

“Mm, s’pose.” Jean sighed and curled himself up, trying to keep as small as possible to not take up too much space. “I was right before. You are too nice for me. You’ll get yourself sick if you get too close.”

Marco wanted to tell him. He wanted to retort that he was sick anyway, so it wouldn’t make much difference. But something stopped him, the same toxic animal living in his stomach that stopped him telling Eren or any of the others. It refused to let him talk, because it whispered lies in his ear about how they would all turn away from him, how they wouldn’t be able to look at him the same way, how they would realise how useless he really was. He said shook his head and wriggled closer. “I’m only nice to the people that deserve it,” he said.

Jean scoffed. “Yeah, right. Like I could deserve someone like you.”

That made Marco sling an arm around him and draw him closer to his chest- for warmth, he _swore._ “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he said. “I’m really not as special as you think I am. I’m just…”

“A decent human in a world full of assholes?” Jean answered for him. He hesitated, before nestling closer, resting his head against the curve of one of Marco’s collarbones. “I noticed.”

Marco was trying to breathe properly, but it wasn’t working as well as he hoped. His skin was prickling with the close proximity of another body to his own, and he was forced to swallow back a lump in his throat. “I-I’m really not some sort of superhero, Jean,” he said, “even if you joke that I am.”

“I know that.” Jean’s eyes were on his chest, hands tugging at his shirt in a way that reminded Marco of Claudine. It was like he was trying to gain a foothold on him, like he was trying to anchor himself, and it was all Marco could do to stop himself from brushing his lips against the spot on the top of Jean’s hair he could reach. Jean’s hands tightened their grip. “You just… fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He took in a sharp breath. “You just make me feel safe. Safer than I’ve felt for a while. So don’t… make it weird. Please.”

_Don’t make it weird._ Those four words made the warm feeling in Marco’s stomach scatter. The cold rock settled back in his stomach where it had taken up its rightful place for years. Marco had to be careful not to let out too loud a sigh. What had he expected? Some sort of confession? _Yeah, likely story._ He let his eyes slide shut, trying to chase down that feeling he craved, but he managed to mumble a small, “I promise I won’t.” And he did. He _promised._ And he never went back on his promises. It didn’t stop him from resting his head on top of Jean’s and only just holding back from nuzzling his nose into the ash hair.

“For some reason, you help and you don’t have to be doing anything,” Jean mumbled. “Like today. I had a really good time, and… I don’t think I would have if you weren’t there to get me inside to begin with.”

Marco smiled. “That’s all my friends’ doing. They welcome everyone in with open arms, no matter what. You never have to be scared of them- even Ymir’s a pussycat when she’s told to be.” Jean grumbled something inarticulate at that. Marco chuckled, and the noise came out far more affectionately than he would have liked. “But in all seriousness, Jean… I know you don’t have much of a family. And, I think you’re the sort of person that needs one. W-well, I don’t have a family either- not a family that likes me for who I am.” He shrugged. Verging on dangerous territory, he pressed on, away from the poisonous thoughts that started to crawl into cracks in his resolve. “But I have a family here. With everyone around me, I don’t feel so alone. And I know we’re dysfunctional, and we squabble, and we’re really just a bunch of kids playing at being adults, but… you can be part of it. If you want.”

Jean shuffled away to look up at him, and Marco’s stomach clenched at just how _hopeful_ Jean looked. “Really?” he asked. He was close to smiling again. Marco hoped he didn’t- he would have even more of a hard time if a smile slipped through.

He wet his lips, and nodded. “Really.”

“Oh.” Jean went quiet then, and Marco didn’t press him. He had a feeling that he might have given Jean an overload of emotion, and Jean would rather die than be seen to cry twice in one night. He wasn't sure when he started playing with Jean's hair, but once he came to his senses he was halfway through twirling a thin strand around his index finger and Jean had inched so close the majority of his body was pressed against Marco's. He was glad most of the alcohol seemed out of his system. He dreaded to think what would have happened if he was back at his apartment, and still being plied with the stuff, cheap or otherwise.

They lay there in the dark for a while, Marco continuing to play with Jean's hair because he thought it would be too awkward if he stopped, and he couldn't help feeling comfortable. He knew Jean didn't want him to make anything 'weird', but when he felt like his own skin fitted properly for once he was allowed to revel in it... wasn't he? Jean didn't seem to have any witty retorts to give him for the treatment, and Marco was sure that at one point Jean moved his head along with him like a fussed-over tomcat. Marco was also wondering whether the heat really had gone out, or whether Jean was just cold all the time. The heat trapped between him and the blanket hadn't warmed Jean in the slightest, though when his foot brushed against Marco's accidentally, Marco felt some of his body heat jump ship with a shudder.

Jean broke the silence first. "Who's Thomas?" he asked the dark room.

Marco's eyes opened. _Oh no. Anyone but him_. He could have asked any question, any question at all and he would have answered truthfully. But Thomas? "Why do you ask?" he said. He tried not to sound terse.

"Eren gave a toast to him at the party, remember?" Jean shrugged. "Just wanted to know who he is."

_Who he is_. Jean didn't know, oh God. Marco bit his lip. He didn't know how to say it. Could he skirt around the point, hope that Jean didn't ask the ins and outs of what happened? He let out a large, tired sigh. He knew he couldn’t. He would have to tell. Damn Eren. "Thomas was my boyfriend," Marco began slowly. "He... he died, a long time ago. He wasn't... wasn't well."

"He died?" Jean repeated. It felt like a stab wound. "Shit... I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"I know. We got together when I was seventeen, eighteen, something like that. He was..." His voice trailed off. How could he describe someone like Thomas in such short sentences? He wanted to keep it simple, but keeping it simple was easier said than done. This was the boy who had made him content in who he was, the boy who turned his world upside down and was there for him through the hardships with his parents. Thomas was the one he talked with, laughed with, smoked with, sang with, kissed, fucked, craved... there was too much to choose from. Marco swallowed back the memories, and tried to focus on the basics. "I loved him," he ended up admitting. "I really did. I loved him so much, and then he was gone."

Jean didn't do anything for a few seconds. But then he looped his arms around Marco's neck, and held on tight. It wasn't a possessive hug, or one that pitied him. It was just there, and Marco realised that Jean was trying to do for him what he had done on hearing about Hitch. "I’m sorry," Jean breathed to the air. “If you… I mean, I’ll be shit at comforting, but if you ever wanna talk about him, I’d listen. S’the least I could do, alright?” He let out a small huff. “Guess we both have fucked up love lives, huh?”

Marco quashed down the feelings that threatened to make him sick. He stopped them from overspilling, from cascading around him and Jean like a sea as they lay huddled together on a raft. He didn't know why, but Jean's comment made him laugh. It was over before it got truly started, but it was laughter. "I guess we do."

Jean let out a long sigh. "It's true what they say: misery loves company."

"Poetic," Marco yawned. "And cheerful."

"Shut up." Jean squinted up at him.

There was silence again, but it was broken instead by the hoard of drunken people coming home from the bars. Marco felt Jean tense up, but he just patted his arm and smoothed a hand up his side to calm him and tried to listen to them. He recognised the old song immediately, and a fond smile sprung across his face. He didn’t realise the old words were coming out of his mouth until he heard them floating in the air above them.

_"Should auld acquaintence be forgot,_   
_And never brought to mind?_   
_Should auld acquaintance be forgot,_   
_And Auld Lang Syne..."_

He sang the words softly, in the same lulling tones he remembered his mother using when she used to sing it to him as a child, and kept tracing circles on Jean's shirt. He wondered if Jean felt singed when he touched him. He didn't think so- but it was nice to imagine. He wasn't even aware that Jean was still awake until he mumbled, "You can sing, Ponytail, I'll give you that."

Marco blushed. "I'm not really that good."

"Modesty don't look right on you, you sound pretty damn good." Jean paused "Even if you sound like Ymir."

"I sound Scottish?" When Jean nodded, Marco chuckled. "Well, probably because I'm part Scottish, Jean. Comes out every now and again, especially when I sing Scottish songs."

"Smart arse." Jean lifted his head to look at him. "You don't have any accent normally."

"When I'm drunk I do."

Jean mumbled something about 'getting him drunk more often' that Marco pretended not to hear for the sake of his sanity, and then entwined his legs through Marco's, complaining that they were still cold. They were like ice, it was true, but Marco's blushing spread all around his body and soon Jean's legs were rather toasty. "Mm, keep singing," Jean murmured, tilting his head up to gaze at him from where he lay. "I like it."

Marco smiled, and ruffled a hand through his hair playfully. "Never had you down for a sentimental type," he said.

"I like poetry," Jean sniffed, "and technically this was a poem first."

Marco shushed him, earning a quiet scoff from Jean, and started again. And this time, he wasn't interrupted. His accent really started to melt in with the words, and soon every syllable was dripping with it. The words had been smoothed down by every voice who had sang them before, and they felt warm and familiar in Marco’s mouth.

_“We twa hae run about the braes,_   
_And pou'd the gowans fine;_   
_But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,_   
_Sin' Auld Lang Syne._

_For auld lang syne, my dear,_   
_For auld lang syne._   
_We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,_   
_For auld lang syne…”_

He didn't notice Jean falling asleep beside him until he reached the last peaceful note and Jean's hand fell from his shirt, his grip lost in sleep, and Marco watched him for a moment. He’d forgotten to give Jean his present, he remembered, but that was a good reason for him to go back to the apartment again. He waited a moment more before leaning over and planting a small kiss on his forehead. He hated how much of a jolt his stomach gave him at the single motion, ever if it was only lips on skin for the minutest of moments. "Happy New Year, Jean," he murmured.

And, just before he gave himself up to the fatigue pulling at his muscles, he swore he heard Jean reply.


	10. I'd give it all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whew, so here's the next chapter guys *flops* amid my ill and flu-y self, I managed to get it written and proofed for y'all, how blessed are you?  
> So after that whirlwind of the last chapter, I think this one's a tad nicer on the eyes. Okay maybe a lot nicer. Stupidly nicer. But I hope you enjoy it anyway, and we get to find out a lil bit about Marco's past relationship with Mikasa, Jean opening up a little more, and Eren realising that maybe, just maybe, he messed up. 
> 
> It's a nice chapter. 
> 
> Just wanna say thank you for everyone's support again; SFS hit 10k hits in the gap between these chapters being released and it has genuinely knocked me for six, so thank you so much to everyone who reads, comments, gives me kudos and bookmarks because I get such a buzz out of knowing that you guys like this story as much as I do. It's really appreciated, so...thanks <3 
> 
> My tumblr: www.attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> Enjoy!

The light that fell through the broken blinds of the window was what woke Marco the next morning. He wasn’t sure if it _was_ the morning; his thick head and bruised eyelids were enough to suggest that his hangover had well and truly kicked in uninvited. He squinted against the intrusive light that only seemed to be taunting his eyes further, shifting a little to get comfy- only to feel the weight on his chest move along with him. Frowning, he looked down- and suddenly became a lot more awake. Jean was led on him, completely and unashamedly led on him, probably from where he’d turned over in the night in an attempt to get as close as possible to him, and his breath spread warmth slowly across his chest. Marco was glad Jean wasn’t conscious to see the insane blush that sprang to his cheeks like it was waiting for the excuse.

For someone usually so cold, Jean was warmer now, like he’d sapped the heat from Marco during the night and found somewhere to hide it. Marco tried to calm himself down, tried to relax the muscles that suddenly sprang taut at the realisation that _yes Jean is on top of you right now please don’t spring a boner please please please_ and found it difficult when Jean wriggled and ground their hips together by accident. Marco let out a small whimper and gazed up at the ceiling. “Why me?” he whispered to the plasterboard.

When he looked back down at his unlikely companion, though, he saw just how relaxed Jean was. There was no pain in his eyes when he was sleeping, no scowl or grimace or fear. The way he had one hand near his face and the other clawing at the fabric of Marco’s shirt made him think of Claudine’s infantile desire for that solid body she craved. His eyes softened. He wondered if, just for a moment, he could pretend this was normal. Could he pretend that this was something he woke up with every day? He bit his lip and slowly wrapped an arm around Jean’s waist, hugging him close as gently as he could without waking him up, and realising how normal it really did feel. _What would it be like to have this as part of a routine?_ He thought.

_Maybe they had both stumbled home exhausted and they just slept where they fell once Claudine was seen to. Maybe they gave each other lazy, sloppy kisses goodnight as they curled against one another for the sheer reason of wanting to be close. Maybe…_

He shook himself free of those thoughts. He drew his arm away. No. He couldn’t think like that. Jean had said not to make it weird, and that was precisely what he was doing if he thought like that. Still, he couldn’t help tracing his thumb around the edges of Jean’s undercut, smiling at how soft the shaven parts were. He tried to stop his eyes from wandering down to his lips, still pale and bitten with nerves, but he failed. _Yeah, he couldn’t keep this ‘unweird’ if he tried._

It was then that Jean stirred, eyelids twitching as he rolled free and onto the futon. Marco let out a small sigh. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted. He got ready to laugh it off, tell Jean that it was fine and not to worry, but when he glanced at him he saw that his eyes were still firmly shut. _Well, then._

Marco realised that Jean’s deep sleep probably meant that he hadn’t gotten up during the night for Claudine. He twisted his neck around to catch a glimpse of her, wondering if she was awake now. The cot was motionless, without a hint of movement or impatience as she waited for them to notice her. Still, he thought it better if he got up now and saw to her before she had the chance to wake Jean up. He went to move- and a pair of arms pulled him back. _What the-?_

“Nnnooo don’ move.”

He froze. “Jean?”

“No movin’. Movin’s bad.” Jean pressed his nose into Marco’s bicep, pinning him in place despite the fact that his eyes were still shut. He still wasn’t awake. Was he… talking in his sleep? "Don' move,” he repeated. “Jus' … stay ere a bi' lon'er."

Marco shook his head, trying to wriggle himself free, but Jean’s grip around his waist only got tighter. “Pleaaaase,” he breathed onto Marco’s skin.

Marco stayed. There wasn’t much else he _could_ do, not with Jean’s sleepy demands and his bizarrely strong grip. Jean let out a content hum at the way Marco stilled, and ducked his head away from his chest to instead rest at the back of his neck. The thrill that shot up Marco’s spine made him wish he’d moved faster, though the way Jean’s breathing seemed to relax suggested that he’d gone back to sleep. Marco closed his eyes and tried to memorise the way Jean was nuzzling against the back of his neck, drawing his arms around his stomach and threading their legs together. He hadn’t been held like this in a long time; he was the one holding Eren or Sasha or whoever needed comforting. But this wasn’t to comfort him; this had a different kind of feel to it, and Marco recognised it from how Thomas used to rest his head in the crook of his neck whenever he was drowsy. He wanted to arch back into the heat Jean was giving, but he knew he couldn’t move a muscle in case it broke the moment apart like thin glass. He instead just let out a little sigh and let Jean hold him.

He might have dozed off again before he heard Jean mumble out something again. “What was that?” he asked.

“Ssssh.” Jean butted the back of Marco’s neck. “s’okay, no wakey for you.”

“Well, too late, I am awake,” Marco said, wrangling a chuckle out of somewhere that didn’t sound too strained. Jean grumbled, but said nothing more.

Marco started to wonder if the last time Jean had been this relaxed was so far away that he could barely remember it. He bit his lip as Jean’s nose brushed against the spot on the back of his neck where the sunflower tattoo resided. The skin still burned on contact like it was a fresh wound, and Marco forced himself to turn around to save the pain that would inevitably come afterwards. Jean didn’t seem to mind; in fact, he just shoved his chin onto the base of Marco’s throat and inhaled deeply. Marco froze as the heat he’d lost in the night rushed back to him. _Was Jean… smelling him?!_

Unfortunately, Jean’s hair decided to tickle the tip of his nose at that precise moment, and he couldn’t stop the natural reaction to a nose-tickle. Even so, the power of his sneeze took him by surprise; with a loud, “CHOO”, it was strong enough to jolt them both in the tangled covers of the futon. He cringed as he felt Jean shift. “Shuush,” Jean whined, dipping up from his disturbed sleep. “Don’ be scared, s’alright.”

“I’m not scared,” Marco said, even though he knew Jean wasn’t listening.

“C’mere, I’ll let you hol’ me hand.”

And before Marco knew what was happening, Jean had threaded his iceblock fingers through Marco’s and huffed out a soft, “better,” before sinking back where he’d come from. Marco had a hard time breathing after that; he didn’t care if Jean’s hands were cold, or the fact that Jean’s chin was sure to leave a dent in his clavicle. What he cared about was that Jean was _holding_ his _hand_ , and didn’t appear to be letting go any time soon. He sighed. He was doomed.

Looking down at Jean’s hands, Marco realised little things about them he hadn’t before. Jean’s hands were slim and pale like the rest of him, but when Marco brought them interlocked with his to his face, he noticed just how delicate they were. They weren’t as rough as he remembered. He always expected artist’s hands that were calloused and marked with the ghosts of well-loved pencils or paintbrushes or whatever mediums worked with, but they were nothing of the sort. They were musician’s hands, fine and soft and ready to pluck beauty out of something, be it a canvas or an instrument. Marco wondered if Jean played anything- he made a mental note to ask when he was fully conscious. He ran a thumb alongside Jean’s own, smiling at how smooth and comfortably it fitted, and felt the ice melt- just a little.

Then he felt a little squeeze. He looked back at Jean and realised, with a jolt, that he was smiling in his half-asleep state. “Y’have nice hands,” was the incoherent mumble he was treated to. “Such nice hands, y’got fixin’ hands, s’no wonder you could fix your bike so good.” He brought the hand he had trapped to his own face, eyes still shut, and Marco’s pulse shot up when he rested it against his lips. They were rough from being chapped and bitten, but it hardly mattered. Marco was nearly wheezing.

“J-Jean…” he warned.

Jean butted his mouth against the back of Marco’s palm. “Mwah, there.” He sounded pleased with himself.

Marco wasn’t sure if he could keep his restraint intact if they carried on much longer. The hugging was fine, the holding slightly harder, but if Jean was going to pretend to kiss his hand there was no way in hell he was going to last. “Haha, okay, that’s enough Hugzo,” he said, the high pitch returning to his voice as he tried to pull away. _You cannot kiss him now even if you want to. No. don’t you dare. He’s talking in his **sleep**_ **,** _for God’s sake._

“Noo, don’t wake the mailman.”

 _I rest my case._ Marco wasn’t sure whether he was going to explode with the pressure or laughter as he regretfully slipped free of Jean’s grip. The pout Jean gave in response to his abandonment was almost enough to make him give in, but he steeled himself against the warmth that tried to overwhelm him and shuffled away. Their hands were the last things to untangle.

Marco sat up with a grimace, the movement rocking his already wailing brain around his head like it was part of a pinball machine. He tried to forget Mikasa’s warning about drinking, but it was hard when it felt like his pills were working overtime to make him feel extra-special-shit. He knew his hangover would be worse than ever, but with everything that had happened, the pain seemed worth it. Almost. It still hurt like hell.

He stood up and moved sluggishly into the kitchen for a glass of water, scruffing up his hair as he went. He was surprised he hadn’t broken out in sweats during the night thanks to sleeping in his usual clothes, but he wasn’t going to curse a lucky break. His nose wrinkled as he found that the kitchen was just as bad as it had been on his last visit to Jean’s house, and if anything, it had gotten _worse_. “Okay,” he said to himself, rolling up invisible sleeves as he glanced over every scrap of space, “this can’t stay. Where to start?”

Keeping busy was his first port of avoidance. Keeping busy meant that his hangover wouldn’t annoy him, and he wouldn’t think too much about Jean and what could be getting nurtured between them. No. Keeping busy was best. Between large gulps of water, Marco started to clear up, moving from one cluttered space to another as he piled every used plate, cup and baby bottle into the sink and got the water running in a slightly steadier drip. He hummed as he worked to distract himself further from the impending headache. He did, however, start thinking about how happy Jean would be when he woke up and saw how clean everything was…

He chuckled to himself. Since when did he become such a housewife? This was all so… painfully domestic. _You’re not his boyfriend_ , the cruel voice in his head reminded him, _You don’t owe him anything. If anything, he’s the one owing **you**_.

Those poisonous thoughts didn’t deter him from washing up every single thing he could find that was wash-up-able, and every surface was gleaming once he was finished with it. Then he found eggs in the fridge that were almost past their use by date; before he realised, he had the hob set up and a pair of them popping and crackling away in the depths of the newest pan. He was halfway through cooking when he got a phonecall, with the ID determining that it came from his apartment. He conducted a swift balancing act with the phone on his shoulder and his hands engaged in the cooking and flipping of the eggs before he could answer. “Morning,” he trilled in greeting.

“Thank God someone’s conscious,” rasped the voice down the other end of the line.

Marco grinned. “Eren! Most unlike you to be up first.”

“Pills made me barf,” was the eloquent response.

Marco felt a flash of panic. “S-sure you’re not just hungover?” he asked weakly.

“Hell if I know,” Eren sighed. “Just feel shitty.” There was a pause. “You at Jean’s?”

Marco paused. Eren was quieter than normal, and the question was asked with hesitation. He thought back to the events of the night before, and cringed at the fight that could have happened. “Yeah. Couldn’t leave him on his own, not after what happened.” Marco focused back on the eggs. “He was pretty bad, Eren. What you did was really out of line.”

If he was expecting an apology, he clearly wasn’t going to get it. Eren ignored his scolding and focused instead on the information. “Wait, do I have to do the ‘you just got laid’ dance when you get back? ‘Cus I’ll do it.”

“No!” Marco hissed. “No, we… we didn’t do _anything,_ Jesus.”

“That’s exactly what a post-fucker would say.”

“ _Eren.”_

“Whaaat, you can’t blame me, seeing as your dick woke up from hibernation last night and it was all because of Sir Grumpalot, dickmancer.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. But we didn’t do anything, Eren. You’re the still the last thing I can call ‘action’.” He managed, by some grace of God, to sidle the eggs onto a plate, glistening with oil, before he asked, “How was the rest of the party?” It wouldn’t do to dwell- he could shout at Eren about Jean later, when there wasn’t a chance of Jean overhearing.

Eren’s laugh immediately put him on the alert. “You don’t know the half of it, mate.”

Marco frowned. “Do I have to hide from the fire brigade again?”

“That was one time, Bodt.” Marco cracked another egg in the pan- satisfied with that, at least. “And nah, not that bad. Just… weird. The night got weird once you guys left. People stopped dancing and messing around and getting drunk like they were before. They just started _talking._ ”

Marco chuckled. “Your worst nightmare.”

“Don’t take the piss, it was genuinely distressing for me.” Eren huffed down the phone. “Anyway, seems like this New Year’s drama just happened to smite us extra hard.”

“Oh?” Marco gave the pan a wiggle by the handle. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Well, for starters, I think there’s trouble in paradise. Connie and Sasha had an argument, dude.”

Marco froze. “They had an argument?” he repeated.

“Yup. Some chick phoned Connie at midnight, said she loved him. Sasha flew off the handle. Think it was hormones, but they were shouting outside for ages.”

“ _Shit_.”

“ _I know_.”

And then Eren launched into the finer details of the night, Marco still trying to cook breakfast as he listened. After he’d run out after Jean, the party had clearly taken on a far more sober feel. Eren said it wasn’t a _bad_ night exactly, but not the kind he expected to be bringing the new year in on. Aside from the argument between Connie and Sasha (they didn’t come back and Eren assumed they spent the rest of the evening in Connie’s apartment either shouting the odds at each other or ‘making up’) it seemed that Marlow had stepped up his game in talking to Mikasa; Eren noted that he only looked like he was going to faint twice after Mikasa sat down and started to talk some things over with him. Eren didn’t catch what it was they were talking about, but he assumed it may have been something to do with Marco. “You’re the mutual connection between them, right?” he asked, making Marco feel a little uncomfortable at the thought. And, from what Eren could gather, Ymir and Christa had hooked up when most people were asleep, and only left to go back to Ymir’s place after Marlow walked in on them and screamed that they were fucking animals for keeping him awake with their noise. “I mean, I don’t care,” Eren finished, “but it kinda felt like everyone was trying to split off and there wasn’t anyone for me,” he said.

Marco frowned. “What happened to Armin? Given up on him?”

“God, no. No, but… after the argument, he got pissed. I mean, he didn’t show that he was pissed, but I could tell. He smiles with his eyes, you ever notice that? Well there wasn’t so much as a fucking titter coming out of those eyes after Jean left. So he left. Grabbed his jacket, made his excuses and left. I tried to get him to stay, but he wasn’t having any of it. Just told me he was grateful for being invited, but he couldn’t stay any longer.” A sigh rolled down the phone. “And that was it. Don’t cry for me Argentina.”  

Marco pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh of his own. Eren was making questioning noises down the phone, waiting for reassurance, and he wasn’t even sure he would be able to explain it to Eren without a defensive tantrum. Eren’s trying to get Armin to stay probably did more harm than good- Eren’s persuasive skills weren’t exactly PG-rated, after all. But then he remembered what Jean had said about the two of them knowing each other at university, and he could imagine it, with a twinge of pain. Armin’s flash of realisation, his bleeding empathy, and his barely contained anger at Eren’s lack of tact. He took in a breath. “Eren, did you know that Armin and Jean are old friends?” he said. “They were friends at uni, before Jean dropped out.”

Eren was silent for a moment. Marco cocked his hip, waiting for the response he was sure to get. The eggs were crackling extra loudly as he waited. “Eren?” he prompted after a while.

“Well shit,” Eren breathed.

“Mmhmm.”

“I’ve… I’ve fucked up, haven’t I?”

“It would appear so.”

“That’s it then,” he said. He sounded resigned. “I’m not gonna be seeing him again, seeing as I’ve disgusted him. Ugh, I should’ve known.” Marco wanted to point out that it was _Jean_ he really needed to feel bad about, and that Armin was just part of the aftershock, but knew it would be no use. Eren tended to have a one track mind. “Can’t believe I was so stupid…ugh… what a shit New Year’s…”

Marco turned the stove off and leant back against the top, clutching the phone to his hand properly as he listened to Eren list off the endless bad qualities he possessed and how Armin got a lucky escape from him, and rubbed his eyelids in an attempt to stave off the headache that continued to worm its way to the surface. “Eren, you made a mistake. That’s okay. You just need to make it right again, that’s all.”

But Eren wasn’t listening. “…m’so stupid, I can’t deal with any sort of relationship no wonder I’m so gone in the head and with the fuckin’ AIDS…”

“Eren!” Marco barked, slapping a hand to his mouth the moment he realised how loud the shout was. “Look, calm down, you have HIV not AIDS, and if you shut up and listen to me I’ll help you. But you have to stop putting yourself down, alright?”

Eren let out a haggard sigh. “W-what?”

“Look, I can’t believe I’m doing this and it’s probably the worst idea in the world, but… I’m gonna give you Armin’s number.” Marco ran a hand through his hair. It was the only way to make Eren see just how much of an impact his words had on Jean- Armin understood, and maybe he could shake some sense into him more than Marco could. After all, if he demanded Eren’s apology, Eren would just take one look at him and snort that it was because ‘he had the horn for Jean’. Marco wasn’t stupid. He knew Eren. He knew how to play him. “You have to promise me not to be a creep about it, though. I’ll tell you what to text first off, and then it’s up to you. It’s your chance to mess up.”

“I’m listening.” And Eren was. Marco could visualise the way he was pinned up against the receiver, eyes wide and mouth slightly hanging open with the luck of it all.

He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ll text you the number on your phone. And just tell him that it’s you, that you hope he had a good rest of the night and wondered if you could meet up to talk about what happened. You’ve got to be a mature, responsible adult. Wait until you’re friends with him before you let out your true nature.”

“You saying I’m not mature and sophisticated?”

“I’m saying you are the exact _opposite_ of mature and sophisticated, Eren.”

“Ouch.”

It was then that Marco heard the tell-tale sound of footsteps padding towards the kitchen. He half-turned, and saw that Jean was lounging in the doorway, hair all stuck up on end from where the gel wasn’t washed out and had locked his bedhead in position like marble. He blinked lazily around at the kitchen, and his eyes squinted at the difference. Maybe he thought he’d woken up in the wrong house. Then his eyes fell on Marco, and they softened. Marco smiled a greeting. “I’m gonna have to go,” he mumbled into the phone.

“Alright, go get yourself some!”

“Shut up.”

“Remember to send me his num-!”

Marco hung up. He tucked the phone back in his pocket before he dared speak to Jean. He still looked a little groggy, like there was a film over his eyes where the sleep had rested a few moments before, but the longer he looked at Marco and the kitchen, the more it seemed to fade away. “Morning,” Marco said, keeping his smile sincere and polite. _Polite. Calm. Detached. You can do this, come on._

“You cleaned.” It was a statement, not a question. Jean was gazing around the kitchen now like he was seeing it in a completely new light, and he even stumbled a little further in to take a closer look. “You cleaned my kitchen.” He said it so incredulously that Marco couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Yeah, and I made breakfast. Sorry if you were planning on using the eggs, but they were gonna go bad, so.” He motioned to the plates, where the fried eggs were no doubt going to be cold from the time spent talking to Eren. Jean eyed those too, shuffling over and peering down at them. Marco felt like a schoolchild waiting for a teacher’s approval, and made sure to keep quiet and not say anything until Jean did. He wasn’t sure how much Jean would want to talk now there was no alcohol as a makeshift excuse.

Jean looked up at Marco with a frown. “Why did you- do this?”

Marco shrugged helplessly. “Am I allowed to do something nice for you without wanting something from it?”

Jean didn’t seem sure of the answer. He just bit his lip through a smile he let flicker onto his face and gave Marco a gentle nudge away from a drawer to get out cutlery for them both. “H-here, you can have the good fork,” he said, poking it into Marco’s chest. And that seemed to be his thanks. It was good enough.

Jean didn’t have a table or chairs, though he did mention in a lowered tone that he used to have a desk for drawing until he’d been forced to pawn it, so they sat on the futon to eat. As predicted, the eggs were cold, but Jean ate every last morsel like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, scraping his own utensil around the plate to catch the remains of cold gloopy yolk. Marco waited for him to finish, and then tipped the last of his cold egg onto Jean’s plate. Jean didn’t even glance at him, just wolfed it down with a mumble of gratitude. After he swallowed his last mouthful, he cleared his throat. “I don’t want any special treatment, you know. If that’s what this is.”

Marco raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, now you know stuff about me you didn’t before, I don’t want you treating me different. I don’t want pity, or sympathy. Well, sometimes I do, but… not all the time. And I ain’t some sorta charity. You know that, right?”

Marco laughed. “Jean, I cleaned your kitchen and made you breakfast with your own food. That’s hardly charity.”

Jean sighed. “I know, but… I just want you to know that. I just wanna be normal, wanna live my life like everyone else in this city and hopefully get a sort of nice ending. That’s it.” He shrugged his bony shoulders and offered Marco a glance.

“Well, that’s something you’ll never be able to achieve,” Marco said.

Jean bristled. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because you’re born for better things than this.” Marco smiled and took his plate from him, backing away before he had the chance to say anything that would slip him up. “You’ll see.”

Jean snorted. “You have a lot of faith in a twenty year old single father.”

“Good,” Marco grinned, “at least one of us does.”

Jean stared blankly at him as he left to wash up the plates, and Marco made sure to take his time. He was sinking in deep. He felt like he was wading through treacle, with every step making retreat difficult. If he wasn’t careful, he wouldn’t be able to pull his way out- his mouth would betray him. Or maybe his arms, giving him away by slinging themselves around Jean’s waist or around his neck. Maybe even his lips… He tugged on his hair extra hard as he tied it up, gritting his teeth against the pleasant pain. _Cut it out, right now._ The rush of heat he got just from yanking on his own hair made him whine. He was in so much trouble.

Claudine had woken up by the time he walked back into the living room, and Jean had her on his chest. Their eyes met, and Marco felt a flash of guilt. His feelings didn’t matter right now; what mattered was the baby on Jean’s chest, the baby that was Jean’s daughter and not his niece, and he smiled at the way she patted her father’s face with a tiny hand, like she was trying to comfort him. Jean scoffed. “Yeah, thanks.”

Marco chuckled. “You should come back to mine. Most of the people will have cleared out by the time we get there, and I can actually give you your present.”

Jean frowned. “You actually got me something?”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, and you’re taking it now before you have the opportunity to bolt again.”

Jean smirked at that. “I guess I could come over…” His face fell. “W-what about Eren?”

“Eren’s an idiot, and I think he’s aware of that right now.” Marco moved over to where he’d shed his coat the night before in a manic rush, and shrugged it on with a slight shudder at the cold it held in its fibres. “If he is there, I’m pretty sure he’ll be avoiding you.”

Jean bit his lip, hoisting Claudine higher up so that she was tucked under his chin. It only took him a few more minutes to make up his mind, handing Claudine over to Marco so he could run up the stairs of the rickety house to get changed. Marco still wasn’t sure why Jean didn’t sleep upstairs, but his question was answered when Jean thundered down the stairs later, clad in a battered old jacket and a murky green top. “It’s still so fucking cold up there,” he complained, failing to suppress a shiver as he fumbled for his keys on the side. “I can only afford to pay for heating downstairs, and the old pipes are bust up there. You might as well know, seeing as you already know most of my shitty existence.” Jean gave him a bitter smile at that, though, like he was trying to make a joke and wasn’t sure whether it was funny. Once Claudine was changed and ready for the off too, Jean gave her back to Marco. “If we’re doing presents, y-you better hold on. I’ll be right back.”

Marco was stood outside the door blowing raspberries into Claudine’s cheeks by the time Jean came back. He looked a little flushed, maybe from running around his studio Marco guessed by the way he’d managed to smudge a thick yellow paint onto his face in the process. “Here!” he said, thrusting a large square at him. Marco blinked, stumbling back so he could see it a little better- and his eyes snapped open.

It was Jean’s practice painting. The one with the black stallion standing proudly at its centre. Jean had done a little more work on the background and details to refine it, changing the time of day to a just beginning twilight, and there were the hints of the stars he loved so much peeking beyond the horizon of rolling hills he’d painted a dusky teal. Marco was glad he didn’t drop Claudine- he almost did, in his desire to hold the painting himself. Jean had slaved over this, taken his time and effort to create it, and Marco wouldn’t have cared if it was a blot on a piece of canvas. They always said that artists gave away little parts of their soul to every work they created, and Marco could see the piece Jean had used, fluttering like the wings of a tiny bird to ripple the mane of the stallion beneath the paintwork.

“I knew you liked it, well I thought you did cus you always look for it when you come over, so I did it up a little. Was gonna keep it and give it to you when it was properly done, but you said Christmas and…” Jean’s voice trailed off, like he realised he sounded too earnest. He just huffed. “D-do you like it?” he tried, in a far more business-like tone.

Marco felt the smile spreading from cheek to cheek. “Jean… it’s… it’s amazing…” he managed to get out.

Jean snorted. “Okay, it’s not _that_ good.”

“I love it.”

“Y-you do?”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, I really do. I love it. Thank you so much!” He looked down at Claudine and laughed. “I’d hug you if I wasn’t holding sprog here.”

Jean smiled again, a genuine smile, and it felt like it was a long time coming. “You called her sprog,” he said, his smile only getting bigger.

Marco chuckled. “Yeah, is that alright?”

Jean considered it for a moment, but nodded and tucked the painting under his arm. “It’s fine when it’s you.” Marco tried not to feel the physical effect of those words, but they succeeded in winding him like a punch to the stomach.

They got back to Marco’s apartment in record time, Jean snatching glances that Marco pretended not to notice, and were welcomed by a groggy Mikasa. She woke up a little more at the sight of Jean and ushered them both in, sliding the door shut behind her with a foot. “We’re cleaning up,” she announced before Marco could ask, and Marlow swung around from wiping down the table. He gave the pair of them a sort of bashful smile- _most_ unlike Marlow- before shuffling away to pick up more abandoned glasses. Mikasa shook her head after him with a grin, muttered something along the lines of, “useless bint,” and turned back to Marco. “Are you two alright? I mean, I don’t want to bring it up but-”

“It’s fine.” Marco was surprised to find Jean answering for him. He didn’t even avoid Mikasa’s eyes either; he just stared at her, fingers clenching a little harder against the painting he carried. “I guess I deserved it. It couldn’t have been secret forever.”

Mikasa raised an eyebrow, clearly as confused as Marco that Jean had enough nerve to talk to her directly. “So, Claudine’s…?”

“Yeah.” Jean sighed. “Sucks to be me.”

Marco looked between the two of them, pride brimming to the surface alongside the confusion. Jean was trying, he was trying so hard, and he couldn’t help feeling like he was at the heart of it. “I’ll be right back,” he urged, handing Claudine to Jean and taking the painting from him in one fluid motion.

He propped the canvas up in the least cluttered space of his room and gazed at it fondly for a few seconds, before he grabbed the things for Jean and dashed out the room with a boyish glee he hadn’t felt in so long. For once, his eyes didn’t wander over the box under his bed.

He bumped into Marlow first. “You can take the day off,” Marlow said, eyeing the hands behind his back and childish grin. “I don’t want you round the shop looking so chipper.”

“And why are you in such a good mood, to let me off the hook for no reason?” Marco asked, leaning back against the wall.

Marlow blushed so hard the shaved part of his hair turned mauve. “W-well, I guess I just… feel like it.”

“Uh huh.”

Marlow looked torn. He chewed at the bottom of his lip, darting a worried gaze over to Mikasa. Once he was sure she was too busy trying to make stinted conversation with Jean, he muttered, “So Mikasa and I talked last night.”

“Oh did you now?”

“And I don’t know, things are just… _clicking_. Do you know how rare that is for me, to have someone _click?_ ”

“I’m sure it’s an uphill struggle, with your attitude.”

Marlow’s expression soured. “Look, I’ve wanted the excuse to talk to her for so long. I’m usually such an idiot, I just mess everything up, but… last night we talked so much, and it felt so comfortable and _fuck my life_ Marco I think I’m onto a good one.”

Marco rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Way to go coming to the ex for advice on how to wine and dine, Marlow.”

“Yeah, well, that was so long ago for you guys now, right? It doesn’t matter, does it?”

Marco’s nose wrinkled. “It does a _bit._ ”

“Marco, please. Can you just… scoot for a little while? Just so we can talk a bit more?”

Marco’s eyes levelled with Marlow’s as he shot him a protective glare. “Is talking all you’ll be doing?” he asked.

Marlow snorted. “Fucking obviously, in case you forgot something like _that_ is not exactly on my priorities list.” He folded his arms against his chest. “Besides, come off it, Mikasa would wipe the floor with me.”

Marco nodded gravely. “Oh yeah, she’d slaughter you and use your balls as keyrings.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“You’re welcome.”

They crossed each other with curt nods and incoherent grumbles, trying to ignore the fact that they had almost had a talk about feelings with one another, and Marco shuffled down the hallway towards the living room again. It wasn’t like he and Marlow didn’t talk, but they weren’t the first people to start confiding in one another. In fact, Marco wasn’t even sure Marlow knew much about Thomas- it wasn’t exactly something he broadcast to the world. “I’m back!” he called as he stepped back into the living room. Batman had found the new visitors, and was currently curling his body around Jean’s legs. To Marco’s relief, Jean was just staring down at the feline gesture of affection and remarked that he wasn’t used to cats being so goddamn friendly. Marco gently shooed Batman away, and turned to Mikasa. “Could you hold Claudine a minute?” he asked.

Marlow walked in just as Mikasa froze. She blinked a few times and stared at the half asleep baby on Jean’s chest. “Does it sprout fur when it’s angry?” she questioned, eyeing Claudine with barely disguised discomfort.

Marlow looked like he wanted to propose marriage.

After some gentle persuasion, however, Mikasa took Claudine (though held her at arm’s length with a mortified expression) and Marco presented the baby carrier to Jean with a beam of delight. “Tadaa!” Jean stared at it in total silence. “I thought it could help,” Marco pressed on. “You won’t have to drag the car-seat everywhere, and you could even hold her when you’re painting, and I know it’s second-hand but it’s practically new and I checked it was safe enough to use and…” He trailed off, knowing how much he was blabbering. Jean still hadn’t said a word. He was holding the carrier by the straps with shaking hands, staring at it like he’d been handed a precious artefact. His fingers creased in the material, and his swallow was painful. Marco’s smile vanished. “J-Jean? Are you-?”

“M’fine,” Jean said, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand to hide the tears collected in the innermost corners of them. “I’m just- shit- this’ll just help me a lot, Marco, you got no idea…”

Marco smiled. “I do, actually. It’s why I got it for you. I mean, I would have tried to get you a pram or something, but they’re expensive and I already paid a lot for those zoo tickets for Eren…”

“No, n-no this is perfect.” Jean bit his lip. “It’s nice, Marco. Real nice.” He wiped his nose with the end of his sleeve savagely, adamant that he wouldn’t let his feelings betray him. Marco grinned, and tried not to make it obvious how much he wanted to hold him again. When he handed Jean the music box he’d been slaving over for weeks for Claudine and showed him how she smiled and giggled at the delicate music, he didn’t get the choice. Jean dropped his gifts on the sofa and engulfed him in a tight, one-armed hug that took Marco by surprise, burying his face into Marco’s chest to shield the tears that were threatening to soak into the fabric. “Thank you,” he whispered fiercely into Marco’s shirt, and Marco had to bite on his lip hard to stop himself from blurting out something he would later regret. He just clutched right back, trying not to let Jean’s hair tickle his nose or catch Mikasa’s eye. When he did spot her, though, she was staring at him with a sympathetic expression. His stomach dropped. _Mikasa, no, don’t think like that, let me indulge for just a little while._

“My painting looks lame in comparison to all this,” Jean muttered when he pulled away, gruffly swiping at his eyes again and beckoning Claudine back to him. “You shouldn’t have…”

“Jean, it’s fine. I had a bit of a windfall, and my friends deserve things that make them happy.” He gave Jean a gentle pat on the shoulder, earning an eye roll from Mikasa, and added, “Which reminds me, I have to go shower. That’ll make _me_ happy.” He chuckled. “You can make some tea or coffee or whatever if you like, I won’t be long. Then I thought we could take that thing for a spin.”

Jean blinked. “The carrier?”

Marco nodded. “Yup. I need to get out of the house.”

“And why’s that?” Mikasa asked, raising a brow in his direction.

“No reason. Just want the change of scenery.”

“Uh huh.”

“Yup.” He gave her a weak grin, and practically sprinted down the hallway before she had the chance to interrogate him.

If Marco thought he was off the hook, he was sorely mistaken. He was in the bathroom and in the middle of undressing when Mikasa walked in on him. He yelped at the intrusion and threw his towel over himself in his panic. “What the hell, Mikasa?!” he shrieked.

Mikasa sniggered at his reaction. “Oh come on, Marco, we’ve seen each other naked so many times it should be trivial by now.” She shut the lid of the toilet and perched on it, staring up at him with an unimpressed look. “Now, you gonna talk to me?”

“Mikasa, that door was locked. The only way you can get in is by jiggling it _just_ right.”

“Well what does that tell you?”

“Way too much.”

Mikasa sighed. “You’re dancing around the point, Marco. What happened last night?”

Marco shrugged, dropping the towel and perching on the edge of his creaky bath. “Nothing to worry yourself about,” he replied.

“You’re telling me nothing happened when Jean just hugged you out there without acting like he was going to be taken out and shot afterwards?”

“What do you want me to say?” Marco ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it up as he shot her a glower. “Nothing, Mikasa.”

“You were pretty drunk…”

“You’re not my mother,” Marco muttered, but answered anyway. “I thought you knew me better than that. I wouldn’t have done _anything_ , especially if I was drunk. You know I only got touchy feely with Thomas when I was drunk, and then was when I was with him.”

Mikasa shook her head. “Marco, I know that. I just worry about you. You were panicking so much when he smiled at you for the first time, but now you’re chasing down every little snatch of laughter you can grab from him like it’s your own brand of oxygen.” She sighed. “I just want you to remember not to jump in headfirst without looking around you. You don’t want to give your heart away too readily when it’s already beaten up.”

Marco knew Mikasa meant well, but all her words did was stir up the toxic worries and concerns swimming around his stomach. He’d managed to squash them down in the deepest, darkest corner of his consciousness, but they all began to stretch and yawn the more she talked. He couldn’t stand it.

“Mikasa, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can handle it. Honestly.”

“Can you?” She prompted. “I didn’t think you could handle it a few weeks ago. Don’t let that pink haze you’ve got floating around your noggin blind you.” She shrugged. “I may just be a cynical cow with nothing to show for it, but I know you. I know that you won’t just bounce back out of another relationship. When you fall, you fall hard, bruises be damned.”

Marco gave her a half-smile. “Look, you can say that you told me so about the whole finding Jean attractive. I’ll give you that. But that doesn’t mean I’ll _act_ on it. Jean’s just… he needs a lot of help. And he’s willing to let me try to give him that help right now, so I’m gonna do it.”

“Yeah, well, just make sure he’s not taking you for a ride.” Mikasa looked towards the door as though she could see through it to the room beyond where Jean was sat waiting. “He seems like a good guy, but if he’s starved of attention he might be worth watching out for.”

Marco snorted. “I sincerely doubt that Jean is taking me for a ride.” He had to remind himself that Mikasa hadn’t seen Jean after he’d run out of the party. She hadn’t heard his story, seen him break down, felt like every part of her wanted to shatter out of pure sympathy for him. He softened his expression and reached out to squeeze her hand. “Mikasa, it’s fine. I swear. I really do know what I’m doing.”

“And that includes keeping your magic pill popping a secret, right? What do you think he’d say if he knew about that?”

He waved her off with a smile, despite how wobbly it felt on his face, and stood up to turn the shower on. It took a few tired splutters before the water finally came through the pipes. “S-shut up, it’ll… it’ll happen. I’ll tell people. When I can.” He knew he was lying. Every time he thought about it, he got snared in a Venus Fly Trap of terror. He was going to need a lot of courage (or alcohol) to do anything remotely close. “I’m not a scared kid anymore.”

Mikasa laughed softly- he wasn’t sure if it was because of his claim that he was going to tell. “Oh, sweetie, that’s exactly what we _all_ are.”

Marco frowned. Maybe she was right on that one.

“I also have to say that your ass is looking amazing right now. Almost makes me sad we don’t fuck anymore.”

Marco spun around with an indignant glower. “Go away!”

“Yeah, like flashing me your dick is any better.” She squinted. “Have you got _bigger_ , how is that even possible?”

“GET OUT.”

Mikasa stepped out of the room gracefully, laughing under her breath as she did so, and Marco heard her fiddle with the locks to make sure it was back in the right position. He shook his head as he got into the shower and stuck his head under the mediocre stream of water. That wasn’t the worst pep talk he’d gotten from her, at least. Mikasa usually had him sat down and spewing out everything she wanted to know; she just had a way of persuading him to confide in her, he guessed. _Fear,_ his brain answered for him. _It was partly done on fear._ Still, it could have been a lot longer, and a lot more painful. He shut his eyes against the oncoming rush of water and let out a small sigh. _So there were little miracles sometimes._

* * *

The next little miracle was convincing Jean to go outside. Even when Marco brandished the carrier at him and said that he had to try it out, Jean still looked anxious, shooting wild glances to the window and the world outside that rushed by in such a tight and stifling chaos. Marco wondered now how he’d never noticed just how worked up Jean got at the thought of having to leave the confines of a place he knew as safe. It couldn’t have been as obvious as this… could it? He didn’t want to push Jean, that was the last thing he wanted, but he didn’t think pandering to him was a good idea either. He could go outside today. He’d already done it an hour before, after all- he just wasn’t a fan of enclosed spaces. That thought was what prompted him to ask, “How about we go to the park?”

Jean chewed that one over. “The park?” he repeated.

“Yeah. I mean, seeing as it’s New Year’s Day there won’t be many people there.”

Jean seemed surprised that Marco had thought of that. He frowned. “I guess that’s true.”

“Exactly! So, park?”

Jean scratched a spot behind his ear, and nodded. “Park,” he agreed. He seemed more comfortable once it was his own choice.

Putting on the carrier was another task entirely. Though Jean was clearly very grateful, the thought of people seeing him wearing it in public was something that froze every limb in place, no matter how much he tried to wrestle it onto his chest. “Are you sure this thing fits?” he complained after a few painful minutes of struggle. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“I think you have it on backwards.”

“How is that even possible?!”

Marco hummed thoughtfully as he investigated the strap and fabric prison Jean had worked himself into. “Well, it’s not meant to be difficult to put on. It looked pretty simple to me.” The glare he got from Jean shut him up immediately. “O-okay, well let’s try it again.” After they yanked and pulled and forcibly plied Jean free of the tangle, Marco righted the carrier and stared at it for a moment, calculating. “Okay, I think these straps here go around your shoulders, just hold the bit she’ll go in to your stomach a minute…” Jean did as asked, and Marco ran the straps down over Jean’s sloping shoulders with his tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration. He shortened them as he went, Jean’s shoulders being far more narrow and slender than his own when he was trying it on, and then picked up the end of another random strap. “Now what does this do?” he questioned.

“I thought you knew!”

Marco grinned sheepishly. “Well, I only just slung it on when I tried it out, so…”

“Oh you motherfucker.”

Mikasa watched the entire struggle from the island in the kitchen with Claudine, taking measured sips of water and chuckling at the frustration on their faces. It didn’t help that she kept winking at Marco as he fiddled with a particular strap around Jean’s waist. He was tempted to throw something at her, but didn’t want to draw attention to the teasing. Marlow was still keeping his distance from Claudine, but when he wandered in from a second-rate shower he slung the towel he was using to dry his hair around his neck and jumped into the fray of _where does that go_ and _no not there that’s my butt_ , and eventually he and Marco stepped away to reveal a furiously blushing Jean with a baby carrier strapped securely to his chest. “I feel like a kangaroo,” he groused.

Marco sniggered, and got a whack for the trouble.

“It took three of you to put a baby carrier on,” Mikasa grinned. “Wow, and my faith in the male gender has been restored.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Marlow huffed, giving Jean a gruff pat on the shoulder before slumping on the sofa.

“Were there instructions?”

“Er…”

“Point taken.”

Claudine was a little overwhelmed by this new and exciting contraption. When Marco gently lifted her in and made sure she, too, was strapped in safely, her eyes couldn’t have gotten wider. Her legs kicked a little wildly for Jean’s liking at first, her grip on him white-knuckled and tense, but when she realised she wasn’t going to be dropped, she relaxed. The kicking became more leisurely, and she stared up at her father with a befuddled expression. Jean sighed. “I know, Princess, fucking weird huh?” he said, pressing a hand to her back out of habit. “You’ll get used to it, though.”

Marco smiled and inclined his head towards the door. “C’mon, let’s go. Or else Marlow’s gonna blow a gasket if I don’t leave him alone in my own home.”

Mikasa blinked. “Marlow? What-”

“Oh, you are _dead_.”

“Time to leave!” Marco sang, grabbing hold of Jean’s wrist and towing him out of the door, snatching his keys off the side as he went. Jean let out a yelp that quickly turned into a breathless sort of laughter that Marco hadn’t heard from his mouth before. It sounded good.

Getting to the park was easy. It took a little longer without Bertha, but the walk did them both good. Jean had his arms firmly shoved in his pockets and his shoulders up around his neck when they started, casting worried glances everywhere they went in case someone was looking at him. Marco frowned at the third flinch he spotted out the corner of his eye, and sidestepped closer to him. When Jean stared curiously at him, Marco just shrugged with a small smile. They didn’t need to say anything. The shoulders gradually began to lower, the hackles becoming less defensive, and Jean’s step almost became springy. “We better steer clear of my apartment for a while,” Marco said after a while. “I think Marlow and Mikasa are in there talking about feelings.”

“Feelings?” Jean raised a brow.

“Marlow’s had a crush on Mikasa since he met her. He thought me and her were an item, so he always held off. But when he realised we weren’t, and that she was single, he’s been trying so hard to get her attention.” Marco laughed. “Seems like yesterday he finally managed it.”

“Why did you guys break up?”

Marco frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You and Mikasa.” Jean’s eyes were cast on the ground. “I mean, you’d make a good- if not dysfunctional- couple, so why did you break up?”

Marco’s frown increased as he thought about it. He remembered the times he spent with Mikasa, the times he’d had so much fun, and the look of pride and awe on his parents’ faces when he introduced her to them as his _girlfriend_ … and then the look of horror that replaced it when they met Eren and Thomas. He gave Jean a grim smile. “I guess it was because we didn’t love each other as much as we thought we did.”

“And you didn’t stick it out?”

“What’s the point?” Marco shrugged. “If someone’s not right for you, you just know. It’s the same as knowing you like someone. You get this… this feeling in your gut. Eren calls it the Hook.”

“The Hook?” Jean raised a brow at that.

“Uh huh.” Marco nodded. “It’s this overwhelming feeling that hits you right in the gut and draws you towards this person without any warning, and doesn’t let go. I mean, it doesn’t always grab you straight away, it could reel you in bit by bit until you realise a year later, but it’s like… chemical. It’s kind of hard to explain.” He rubbed the back of his neck as they walked, feeling the heat of a blush travel up his spine too quick. “And, Mikasa and I, we just… kinda were together out of necessity.”

“Let me guess. Bringing home a pretty girl like that would’ve sent your Dad over the moon.” Jean’s words were bitter, but held too much truth in them.

Marco sighed. “Partly that. She was the first person I met in Trost, so we sort of stuck together as I was making my way around. I stayed with my Aunt in a house bordering the park. She’s dead now, but God she was an amazing lady.”

“Were you together to hide in plain sight?”

Marco twitched at that. When he looked back at Jean, he saw that he was _definitely_ avoiding his eye now, not even looking at Claudine as he scuffed his shoes on the pavement. He tried not to notice, but he could see Jean’s fingers itching to pick at his sleeves even when they were in his pockets. He bit his lip, and focused on the path ahead.

“Sometimes I think that’s what it turned into. Not at first though, I wouldn’t do that to her.” He glanced at Jean again, not being able to help it. “She’s aro, you know. Aromantic.”

Jean made a questioning huff. “Explains a lot.”

“It was hurting her, pretending I guess. Think that’s why we’re still so close now- that’s how we were when we were together anyway. There’s just no sex involved.”

“R-right…”

They took the next turn, and the park was open in all its glory to them, the misted sun trying to break through the icing sugar clouds that lay in front of it, and the grass still wet with dew even though it was midday already. Marco sensed Jean inhale deeply, steeling himself, before they stepped through the small gate and into the green space. It was the place they had used for the exit during the motorbike race, and this end was a little sweeter on the eyes. There was a large stone fountain in its centre that was dappled with lichen and moss but still in working order, and a small play area for kids. Marco had been right about there being barely anyone there; the only people he could see was a rather hassled mother with three rowdy children and an old man reading on a bench a couple of strides down from them. The rocking motion of Jean’s stride had lulled Claudine into a snooze, but when he slowed to a halt her eyes blinked back open and suddenly she was trying to twist herself around to see what was going on. “Heyy, what are you fretting for, eh?” Marco cooed, tickling her behind the ear as she made the tiniest huff known to man. He chuckled, and glanced at Jean. “We could turn her around, you know.”

His eyes widened with the thought of it. “What if we can’t get the straps back on?”

“It can’t be _that_ hard, you only have to pick her up and swivel her round, c’mere.” He beckoned Jean closer, pulling the straps so he got there just that little bit faster, and blushed at his own nerve. “Right, let’s see…”

It only took them ten fumbling minutes to get Claudine spun around so she could look out at the world, and the difference was hilarious. For a moment, she froze in place at the sight of everything around her; the colours, the movement, the lights, all were dazzling her beyond description. And then she got excited.

 _Really_ excited.

She let out a shriek of delight and started to wriggle around, every limb moving at about fifty miles an hour, until-

“Ow! Don’t punch me!” Jean hissed as a particularly wild hand got smacked into his face. “God, maybe this was a bad idea.”

Marco laughed. “You can’t blame her for being excited! Imagine being suspended in the air and being able to see everything like you’re as tall as your giant father.”

Jean sniffed. “M’only five foot nine.”

“She doesn’t know that, she probably thinks you’re a giant.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Marco laughed. “You know,” he said, sobering a little as he perched on the edge of the fountain, “you don’t seem to like it when I say you’re her father. Should I stop?”

Jean blinked. “What, no. No, no, don’t worry about it, it’s just… weird hearing it come out of somebody’s mouth without a grimace.” _Ah. There was a reason he didn’t tell everyone about it, then._ “And besides, I don’t really… refer to her as my daughter, so it’s weird.”

“You don’t?”

Jean shook his head, sitting down beside Marco and trying his best to avoid Claudine’s flailing arms. “It’s just… it sounds so pathetic, but it’s still not hit yet that she’s mine. I mean, I was there for everything, and when Hitch and I were living together I was probably more of a parent than she was, but now it’s just me and Claudine it’s like all that paternal instinct has taken a swan dive off the nearest cliff and she’s just… a lodger.” He wrinkled his nose. “A smelly, bawling lodger.”

Marco leaned over. “Is that true?” he asked Claudine. “Are you a smelly, bawling lodger?” Claudine’s mouth opened wide in a big gummy smile and she let out a squeaking laugh. “Thought so. Knew it all along. You’re not a baby at all, are you? You’re just an imposter.” Another squeal. “There we go, you heard it here first.” Marco clucked at her to make her giggle even more, and looked back at Jean. The soft expression he was giving him wasn’t fair. He darted his eyes away, trying to moor himself in the calm waters of ‘comfortable’ and not in the choppy waves of ‘this could be something’.

“Jean, I’m sure it’s absolutely fine to feel like that. These things take time. You’re not just going to wake up one morning and be endowed with all the fatherly knowledge of the world. You’ve been through a lot, and that’s gonna make you a little wobbly- it’s bound to.” Jean was staring at him with the sort of reverence he usually reserved for his books, Marco realised, and it almost sent him tipping off towards choppy territory once again. He gulped, and carried on. “Y-you have to learn as you go along. And you also have to learn that having a baby isn’t the end of your life.”

Jean leaned back on the stone lip of the fountain and exhaled slowly. “Sometimes it feels that way, Ponytail. Sometimes, it feels that way.”

Marco watched him for a while, deliberating, before poking him in the side. Jean flinched, and looked at him for answers. “Tag,” Marco said.

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Marco prodded him again.

Jean’s glower was short lived. He ended up snorting and shaking his head, the flicker of amusement on his face. “Oh no, we’re not doing this.”

“Yes we are. Tag.” And again.

“Marco, this is childish, stop it.”

“So? Tag.” He hit his shoulder.

“Marco, I swear to go-”

“ _Tag.”_ He poked his cheek.

“Oh that’s it, you fucking lunatic.”

Marco was on his feet in seconds, and pelted down the stretch of path with a whoop of glee. He looked over his shoulder to see Jean hot on his heels, Claudine clinging on for dear life and squealing the entire time. He zigzagged to the right and grinned over his shoulder. “You call that chasing? Come on, tag me!”

“You motherfucker, you’re not supposed to dodge, that’s unfair!” Jean shouted after him, one hand still clutched onto Claudine’s body as he ran.

“All’s fair in love and tag.”

“You are such a little-”

“Uh uh uh, no more swearing, you have a baby strapped to your chest.”

“If I didn’t I’d be killing you right now.”

Marco snorted and turned tight to the left, sending Jean scuttling after him. “Claudine, your Dad’s a liar cus he’s a slowpoke!”

“H-hey, I ran cross country in school!”

“I’m sure the school were very grateful.”

“Oh, you are going _down_.”

Marco’s laughter was the only thing that slowed him down. He had to stop to get his breath back and was barrelled into by a cackling Jean with a crow of triumph, though there was a collective shout of, “WATCH THE BABY” as they nearly fell onto the grass.

“I w-wouldn’t w-worry,” Jean managed to get out between breaths, “babies are deceptively sturdy beings.”

“That from experience?” Marco grinned, running a hand through his hair as he recovered his own breath.

“Wha-NO.” Jean gave him a playful shove. “God, you’re such a dick sometimes.” But he was grinning, grinning without any need to, and it made Marco warmer than any sunshine. “How can you run so fast, _shit_.”

“Well, running from the police will do that to you,” Marco admitted. “They don’t tend to like me doing their job.”

“No kidding, fuck.” Jean chuckled through his wheezing, and straightened up the moment he realised the blood was probably rushing to Claudine’s head. Marco remarked that she did look a little dizzy, earning himself the second smack of the day.

“See?” he said proudly once they’d both retrieved their lost air.

“See what?” Jean asked.

“You can have fun _and_ have a baby around,” Marco answered, puffing his chest out with a grin. “I was right.”

Jean rolled his eyes, but it was the good-natured kind. “You’re such a fucking child,” he chuckled gruffly, and gave him a gentle nudge with his shoulder. Marco nudged him right back, careful not to knock him too far, and realised just how much Jean had smiled and laughed with him. Was it relief? He guessed it probably was; Jean was giddy with the knowledge that someone knew about one of the most important parts of his life, and didn’t mind at all. That had to be it. It was _just_ giddy relief. The ‘just’ helped wedge that gap a little, made Marco breathe that little bit easier, and for a moment he could forget about the guilt and conflicting feelings squirming around his stomach. The ‘just’ made him happy for Jean without worrying about anything else.

They fell into step together, Jean still shoving Marco every now and again with mirthful chuckles, and only when Marco reached out to ruffle his hair did he hear a squawk of protest and a frantic batting of Jean’s hands to fend him off. Marco nearly broke when he saw Claudine trying to copy her father, waving her hands in the air and giggling to herself.  Then a noise made him stop dead. It was a soft, barely there noise at first, but it got louder the closer it came. Marco’s ears didn’t lie to him. And, sure enough, as it turned the corner…

“Ice cream van!” Marco trilled, grabbing hold of Jean’s hand without thinking and towing him towards the merrily painted van blurting out its own tinny rendition of ‘ _Yankee Doodle’_ as it pulled into the park. “Come on, we’re getting ice cream.”

“Marco, it’s the middle of winter!” Jean protested.

“You saying you don’t want any?”

“…No, I want some.”

Marco beamed at him. “Me too. You can pay.”

Jean blinked. “Er, no money.”

Marco raised both brows at him, biting back a smile. “No money?”

Jean shook his head. “Nope.” He’d caught way Marco was smiling, though, and offered him a crooked little smirk of his own. Marco even spotted a tiny little flash of tongue poking between his teeth for a split second. He blamed his blush on the sudden cold.

“Not even a quid?” he tried.

Jean chuckled. “Nowt! I got nowt.”

“Honestly, what sorta friend are you?” Marco scoffed playfully, giving Jean another playful bat. “Fine then, Mr. Tight Wad Northernshire, ice cream’s on me.” He trotted away from him with a grin. “If you can catch me.”

“Oh, for God’s-” But then Jean was off, sprinting after him with a hoarse shout and Claudine juddering along in the carrier, and Marco let out a small ‘eep’ of alarm and started running faster. He was certain that the van driver probably thought they were mad, a single father and his baby running after a tall, wild-haired man who couldn’t stop laughing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

And at that moment, he was sure Jean couldn’t either.


	11. Leave all this to yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoop so another chapter of SFS is up! I think this one took a little longer than normal, sorry friends, but life has decided to be a real kicker right now: not only did I get ill and it took me about 3 weeks to shake, work kinda exploded as well so I didn't get much time to write. BUT this chapter is a wee bit bigger, a 14k whopper, so I hope that makes up for it! Thank you again for all the support I've been getting for this fic, it really does give me such a boost and gets me super motivated for the next chapter, so rest assured every comment or kudos I get is appreciated <3  
> So, in this chapter we see a bit more of Mikasa's quieter side, Armin being a smooth operator, Marco feeling a bit sorry for himself and Jean being the awkward nerd that he is. I love them all. And Ymir's obsession with ginger. 
> 
> You can also contact me on my tumblr heeeere, I got asks open: www.attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> Enjoy guys! :D

Marco had good days. He had days that made him feel normal, made him feel like there was nothing wrong with him and left him wondering why he worried so much in the first place. Those kinds of days had become more and more numerous as the weeks passed by, and they were beautiful. He savoured them like the best wine, clung to them with every ounce of strength he could muster, and only remembered that they were mockeries when he came home to a pot of pills and the crushing reminder of the memories under his bed.

Marco had good days. But that meant that there were bad ones too.

Today was one of those bad days.

He had a feeling it was because he took a detour the day before; after leaving Jean at his house, he caught sight of a clearly lost teenager wandering around the less than savoury part of town. After the teenager mumbled that he’d just been dumped by his boyfriend and he had no idea where he was, Marco slipped his hand in his and led him away from the death trap he was going to wander into. “You don’t want to be seen on your own around here,” he told the kid as they dove away from the sidestreets and out onto more open areas. “It isn’t worth the trouble you can get yourself in.”

“W-what if people see?” the teenager asked, trying to shove their combined hands into his jacket pocket.

Marco’s heart had gone out to him. He knew what it was like to be terrified of someone knowing, too. “As far as they know, I’m your boyfriend and I’m walking you home, alright?” he said. “And if they have a problem with it, they’ll take it up with me.” The boy had sniffled a ‘thanks’ and followed Marco’s lead, darting glances over his shoulder every now and again.

Marco had only been out another half an hour. It shouldn’t have been enough to warrant the temperature he realised he was running when he slipped through the door, or the sudden fit of coughing that assaulted his chest. Still, he gulped down his pills and went to bed, too sleepy all of a sudden to wonder why Eren wasn’t there already, and that was how he stayed.

He knew something was wrong the moment he woke up. For starters, the stumbling trip to the bathroom to up-end his stomach was slower than normal, and definitely more of a struggle. The second indicator was the way he was burning up hotter than a boiling kettle. He dragged himself back to his bed with a groan, and in a few minutes he didn’t even have the energy to roll over. Every limb seemed pinned in place by the flames licking at his bones, and his _head_. He was pretty sure it had turned to stone without telling him, it felt so heavy. He was used to getting poorly- it was part and partial, after all- but this was something different. This wasn’t just a side effect of the pills: this was _ill._

He whimpered for Sasha for a few minutes before giving it up as a lost cause, rolling onto his stomach with the greatest possible difficulty and slapping his hand around for his phone. It took four attempts before it was in his hand, and then the dialling took even longer. Sasha slipped into his room the moment he got through to Marlow.

“What is it?” Marlow asked. Blunt, as ever.

“M’gonna be late in today,” Marco said, drawing himself up to a sitting position. Sasha hadn’t left. She was still staring at him in confusion, brows drawing together as she listened to the conversation. “Can you man the shop for a couple of hours?”

“I guess so, what’s the hold up? You don’t usually skip out on such short notice.”

“Something’s just…ugh, come up, that’s all.” Marco eyed Sasha cautiously, as she seemed to be inching closer and closer to his bed. “Would it be okay if I just-”

Too late. Marco took his eyes off of Sasha for a split second and she made the most of it, darting at him with surprising speed for a pregnant woman and snatching the phone out of his limp grasp. Marco protested weakly, but she already had it to her ear. “Marlow, he’s not coming in today, he looks like utter shit,” she said, dancing away from Marco’s angrily swiping hands. “Yeah, more so than usual. Looks like he’s been ran over a few times and then dunked in a lake.”

“I am here,” Marco mumbled.

“That’s right, not even Eren would jump him right now.” Sasha tutted sadly. “Such a tragedy. I’m sure you can take care of the shop on your own for a few days- wouldn’t want to catch whatever trainwreck Marco’s got.”  There was a pause as Marlow said some choice words down the phone, but all Sasha did was nod severely and say goodbye. The phone was hung up and Marco’s fate was sealed in a second. “You’re ill,” Sasha stated.

Marco looked pleadingly up at her. “I’ll get better.”

“You’re staying in bed.”

“Sasha, I need to go to work.”

“Try getting up, then. If you can stand up without fainting, then be my guest.” Sasha had her hands on her hips now, stern mother hen mode going into overdrive. Marco rolled his eyes, grumbled, and tried to sway to a sitting position. He could barely manage that; his head felt like cotton had been threaded through his ears and into his brain, and now it was muffling any coherent thought. If anything, it was encouraging the migraine that was peeking over the horizon. He groaned and slumped back down into the bed, beaten. “Thought not,” Sasha said, triumph in her voice. “You want me to get you anything from the shop?”

Marco blinked blearily, trying to keep his eyes from shutting. Why was everything so hard all of a sudden? “L-Lemonade,” he managed to get out, “and maybe some cookies.”

“Double chocolate?”

“It’s a double chocolate kind of day.”

Sasha nodded, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. “Marco, you need to stop pushing yourself so hard. You get sick so often, and you just try to plough through without stopping. You have to let yourself rest sometimes, okay?”

Marco swallowed dryly and flittered his eyes shut. He couldn’t do that. Sasha didn’t understand. If he stopped, that meant it was winning. He couldn’t let it win. Not when he’d seen what it was capable of. He draped his arm over his face to block out the sunlight trying to break through his lids and mumbled, “Maybe just… just one day…”

“Maybe just _three._ To start.” He felt Sasha’s fingers thread through his hair, and couldn’t help leaning into her touch with a sigh. “Come on, Marco. Stop. Just lie down and feel sorry for yourself for a little while. It won’t kill you.”

Marco laughed bitterly at that, but the fingers vanished from his hair and the bed grew lighter. He heard the tapping of nails on a phone, but didn’t properly register it. He didn’t really want to be left alone with a temperature that was scorching his bones and leaving him weak and wracked with shivers at the same time. He immediately regretted his thought process when something beeped and Sasha’s voice called out, “I’ve told Mikasa. She said she’s on her way.”

He whined. “Not _Mikasa_ ,” he whined, turning to bury his face in his pillow. He knew what would happen if she came around. She would bring medicine- _horrible_ medicine. He buried his nose deeper into the pillow. If he tried hard enough, he might just be able to smother himself. It was an option.

There was a pause as Sasha checked her phone. “Oh God, Eren’s with her. Looks like you’re not gonna get any peace at all.”

It didn’t take them long. Marco wasn’t even sure Sasha had left (Mikasa had her own key, and tended to let herself in whenever she pleased) and it only felt like a few minutes before the door to his bedroom swung open and hit the wall with a loud BANG, the noise instantly chipping into the ache on his skull. He opened one eye gingerly, hoping the motion wouldn’t cause another surge of pain from what seemed to be his brain, and saw Eren striding into the room with a ruffled Mikasa in tow. “E-ren?” he tried. His mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust. _Shit. I really did overdo it this time._

“Yeah, _Eren_ ,” the perpetrator said, rushing to his bedside and thrusting a cold palm against his forehead. The heat blazed more than ever, but Marco shuffled himself closer with a whine, welcoming the chill that spread from Eren’s hand through to his flamethrower brain. “What the hell have you done to yourself, you idiot? Burnt yourself out again?”

“Mm, something like that.” Marco shuffled closer still. “You’re cold…”

“No shit, I’ve been outside. Ugh, you’re such an idiot, you’re not ill that often.” Eren then pressed his other hand to Marco’s cheek, and Marco thought he was in heaven. “You told Marlow?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Good. Mikasa got you some medicine.”

“Noooo.”

“Yes.”

Mikasa then stepped into view, and Marco didn’t want to look at her. He knew what sort of expression she would be wearing. He had to eventually. When he did, he bit his lip. “Hey…”

“Hey.” Mikasa drifted her own hand down to check his temperature, though hers wasn’t as cold. “You really are burning up. Have you eaten anything today?”

“No.” He tried to roll back into the centre of the bed, but her glare stopped him. “I’ll be okay tomorrow, Mikasa. Really.”

“Don’t count on it,” she snorted, letting her fingers delve a little lower down to the underside of his jaw. “Your glands haven’t swollen up, but you’ve still got a fever...” Her eyes softened as she said it, and Marco heard the unspoken addition to her sentence. _You’ve got more of a fever than normal._ He mumbled something about his migraine and just gave in, letting Mikasa fuss over him and brandish a bottle of questionable looking liquid. Eren would have pinned him down if he was strong enough to struggle, but Mikasa forced the foul smelling tonic between his lips and pinched his nose to make him swallow. When Marco was busy choking on the aniseed taste assaulting his taste buds, Mikasa asked Eren to run to the shop to fetch something for them. Marco didn’t even catch what it was. Once Eren had gone, racing out the room like a thing possessed, he stared questionably at her. She shrugged. “Had to get rid of him somehow.”

Marco sighed, and wriggled to the left to get comfy. “You’re mean.”

“It’s necessary.”

“Necessary for what?”

“Marco.” When he opened his eyes again, Mikasa was led on the bed beside him. The mattress hadn’t even squeaked. Her eyes were soft, though, and her lips were parted ever so slightly as though she wanted to talk but couldn’t quite figure out the words yet. After a moment or so of the two of them just staring at one another, she sighed. “C’mere.” She took his hand gently, threading her fingers through his with another barely audible sigh, and let her eyes flicker up to his.

Marco blinked at her. “Don’t get too close, or you’ll catch it,” he warned.

She shook her head. “We both know that’s unlikely.”

Marco’s chest felt heavy. “This doesn’t mean anything, Mikasa,” he repeated, giving their hands a little squeeze. “Sometimes I get run down. It happens to everyone.”

“But it’s different with you.” Mikasa frowned. “You know it is. You have to be careful.”

“I know, I know…”

Her teeth grazed the bottom swell of her lip, and Marco wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her look so open. Mikasa was a shielded person; she wore blank faces and cold stares like armour, piling them on one after another to make sure that no one could peek through to the soft emotion within, but there were times where people could spot a chink in that armour. It was usually Marco who saw it, and it was usually because of him. He hated what he did to her. “Marco, you scared me half to death when Sasha called me,” she said eventually.

 _There it was._ Marco swallowed painfully. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine.” _I’ll be fine._ Those three words seemed to be the only ones stuck in his mouth at the moment. Nothing else let itself come out; only those three little words, those three stupid little words, tumbled from his mouth like droplets from a leaky tap- and what sort of comfort were they?

“Are the pills working?” Mikasa’s question was more of a demand than an ask. Her eyes were sharp again, penetrating. “Is that why you’re sick? They’ve stopped working? Please tell me you’ve been taking them and you haven’t forgotten like last time. I don’t ever want a repeat of that.”

“Mikasa,” Marco waved away her concern with his free hand. “I’m just feeling under the weather. The pills make me sick, sure, but they’re not causing this. It’s not part of the side effects. Trust me, I’ve checked a thousand times over.”

Mikasa didn’t look convinced. Marco didn’t blame her. She rested her head on the same pillow as his, the eyes boring into his forehead making it burn even more.  The hand she had in his clenched ever so slightly. “You can’t do things like this to me and assume you can just laugh it off and make it okay,” she said. Her voice was trembling at the end of her sentence, and that sent Marco into a deeper chasm of concern. “Please just let me worry about you.” Marco opened his mouth to protest, but she clapped her free hand to it, shaking her head. “ _Please._ I want to be able to worry about you without you trying to pretend that there’s nothing wrong, that it’s no big deal.” Her brows slanted downwards as she added, “that scares me more than anything. It’s like you’ve just resigned yourself to it, and there’s no point in being worried.”

Marco bit his lip behind Mikasa’s hand and let out a sigh. He gently removed her hand from his mouth, arching a brow as he did so at the stark anxiety in her face, before he said, “It’s just how I cope.”

“By sweeping it under the carpet?”

“By getting on with my life,” he corrected her gently, tracing small circles on her wrist to calm her. “If I stop to think about it, do you really think I’d want to get out of bed in the morning?” He could feel the raised flesh and disturbed skin under his fingertips, and could imagine the white snakes of scars in his mind’s eye under the fabric of Mikasa’s top. He winced at the memory, and Mikasa pulled her long sleeves down to cover them from his touch with a glare. “S-sorry,” he said, threading his fingers through hers and giving them a squeeze of apology. “I don’t mind if you worry about me. I like the fact that someone in the loop does. But pity won’t make me stronger. You understand that, right?”

Mikasa looked away, pursing her lips at the thought. She wasn’t happy. He could tell that. But what else could she come back with? She turned back to him after a while and let out a short huff. “You’re such a stubborn little bastard,” she said.

Marco smiled. “Can’t help it.”

Mikasa let out a long sigh, but she reached over and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. “Just- don’t die on me, okay?” she mumbled against his skin.

The creature in Marco’s stomach that rose up whenever he thought too hard about his pills yawned at her words. The sudden chill that stole through him had nothing to do with the fever he was running. He wanted to force out a laugh, make a joke out of it, but nothing wanted to come. So instead, he just shuffled closer and gulped back the creature that clawed at his insides. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, fatigue stealing over him as another wave of fever crashed over him. “B-but…you really should keep your distance. I wouldn’t want you catching this.”

Mikasa snorted. “I’d like to see you try. I have an iron immune system, remember?”

Marco grunted, rolling away and running a hand against his prickling temples. “Ugh, wish you had some to share,” he commented. Mikasa said nothing.

They stayed on the bed together until Eren came back. Marco heard the door click in his muffled state, but didn’t have the energy to turn over. Mikasa’s hand had somehow found its way into his hair, and she was scratching his scalp in small circles every now and again to keep him conscious. She knew all his spots, and knew exactly which ones would turn him to jelly under her hands. The scalp scratching was just one of many weaknesses she was aware of. “I got your bloody Nightnurse shit, happy?” Eren greeted, throwing the bag on the bed and ignoring the way it narrowly missed hitting Marco in the groin.

Marco tried to swivel his head to watch Eren’s progress across the room, but the bones in his spine seemed to think differently. As his head flopped back on the bed with a barely stifled groan, he managed to follow Eren with his eyes to where he stood in front of the painting Jean had done for him. He still hadn’t found anywhere to put it, but it was propped against the wall so he could turn over and gaze at it when the mood took him. And now Eren was gawping at it like it was a nude. Marco felt heat rush to his cheeks-again, nothing to do with the fever. “Did Jean paint this?” Eren asked. He couldn’t disguise his irritation if he tried.

Marco could only mumble out a noise that sounded affirmative as he felt the migraine begin to pound again between his eyes.

He heard the huff in Eren’s voice as he glared at the canvas. He didn’t say anything else, though, just walked over to the bed and propped a warm cup in Marco’s free palm. When Marco squinted down at it, he saw that it was from Pixis’ Moustache. _A mocha with extra sprinkles._ His mouth twitched up in a smile as he noticed Eren’s attentive expression and shuffled up to a sitting position (despite how much it hurt to do so) and sipped at the still-warm liquid with an appreciative hum. “Thanks,” he said, chuckling at the way Eren scrambled onto the bed and lay beside him, curling against him to keep from falling off. He swung his arm around to wrap around the back of Eren’s shoulder, drawing him in as he took another sip of the coffee. His head throbbed angrily, but he killed it with as much caffeine as he could muster before setting it on the bedside table that was a glorified storage crate.

“This takes me back,” he muttered to himself, half asleep as he looked down at his hands entangled with Mikasa’s and then painfully swept his gaze over to the arm around Eren. “Remember when Eren used to come into our bedroom, ‘Kasa? When he was all… sad over some guy… and he wanted comforting…” He was drowsy. He wasn’t sure how much sense he was making, but the soft laughter from Mikasa’s side suggested that she, at least, had heard him.

“And he’d always end up fucking them the next day,” she added.

“Fuckk you,” was the response he got from Eren.

Marco snorted. “Charming. M’ill, you know.”

“Not ill enough for a smack around the head.” But Eren still snuggled closer, still rested a hand on Marco’s burning chest and let out a sigh. Marco knew it probably wasn’t in his best interest to be held on both sides, but the comforting factor outweighed the logic and he was more than happy to lie between the both of them. Mikasa wasn’t nearly as close as Eren- she didn’t do proper cuddling- but her hand in his told him all he needed to know. They began to talk about stupid things, pointless things, things that didn’t matter to anyone except them, and Marco felt the pull of sleep even though he’d only been awake a few hours.

“Sleep,” Mikasa urged when she spotted him fighting to keep his eyes open. “The best way to fight it is to rest and let your body do its job. I’ll wake you if I need to.”

 _She would wake him for his pills._ That was the implication. He was too overcome by the embers licking at his muscles and nerves and everywhere else to feel much more than miserable. He slipped into a fitful sleep, and he was pretty sure he pulled Eren and Mikasa closer to him with a whimper as his skull felt like it was constricting. It was just the three of them again, in a different bed and a different time, but he couldn’t help but think back to the days when everything seemed so much simpler than they did now.

* * *

Apparently, news travelled fast in Trost. By the end of the first day, Connie had stopped over and brought chocolate with him. He also delighted in planting a rather large lizard at the foot of Marco’s bed, to Batman’s disdain (the cat kept to hissing from the windowsill at the scaly addition to the group) and stated that ‘Belinda’ could probably benefit from the heat Marco was giving off. “I mean, not that I want you to be sick or anything,” he said after Eren shot him a dangerous look, “but her tank’s shut down and I can’t replace it for a few days, so…”

It wasn’t exactly a snuggly puppy, but the lizard (identified by Connie as an iguana) did seem to like nestling into the burning fever Marco was exuding. It even let him pet it a few times, before hissing and retreating back into Connie’s shirt. Connie claimed she was shy. Marco thought otherwise.

He wasn’t always conscious; he drifted in and out of sleep like a ship tossed against a roiling ocean, dipping into conversation and often mumbling responses to simple questions, but everything seemed so _hard_. And that didn’t even factor in the dreams. Oh god, the dreams.

He’d had fever dreams before, but never anything on the scale of that day. He regretted ever having read Dante’s _Inferno_ after getting flashing images of demons and dragons and blackened things with eyes dripping like wax; however over the top it seemed, the creatures that raked their claws across his skull and blossomed new pain in their wake were nothing short of nightmarish. Marco felt, at some points, like he was delving into one of Dante’s levels of Hell himself. He woke up jolting and shouting and screaming, and it took everyone in the room to calm him down and reassure him that the demons in his head were not going to peel out from the cracks in the plaster above his head. Mikasa pressed her hand into the small of his back soothingly, letting his head flop onto her shoulder as his shakes were mingled with sobs from the pain bolting through him. Eren scooted up behind him and pressed lips that felt cold to the base of his neck. And Marco knew he was safe.

He tried time and again to get Eren to leave, demanding it even. “Eren, you’ll catch it!” he protested after the third time Eren slipped closer.

“I don’t care,” Eren replied stubbornly, burrowing deeper into the folds of Marco’s shirt between his shoulder blades. “When I’m sick you can nurse me.”

“You don’t want this.”

“You’re weak as a kitten right now, what are you gonna do about it?” Eren gave his hair a teasing pull out of spite. Marco whined. “See? And you’ll be better before you know it!”

Marco didn’t get better.

The second day saw a slight chink in the solidarity of the fever dreams; after a particularly hellish one about stripping skin from bone to reveal nothing but steel underneath, Marco woke up in a damp sweat in the early hours of the morning and refused to go back to sleep. Instead, he groped around under the bed and felt his fingers brush against the worn spine of something familiar. His eyes widened. He pulled the book out from its place, filed away for safekeeping, and felt his stomach settle a little as he breathed in the musty smell from the old book. _The Bell Jar._ The first book Jean had given him to read.

Blinking lazily in an attempt to rid himself of the horrible images swimming through his peripheral vision, Marco dragged the book up to his face, wincing as his headache decided to announce its presence. He opened it to the first bedraggled page and saw the beginnings of scribble in the margins. It was ridiculous how much seeing the elegant loops in Jean’s writing soothed him. Soon, he stopped reading the book altogether, revelling in the notes Jean had scrawled in haste, printed with care, traced like old friends, and hated how poignant some of the comments seemed to be. He’d read some before, of course, but there were others he had left out, too caught up in the story itself to be mindful of what Jean had to say. Those were tucked into corners, pushed up to the edge of the text so Marco had to squint to read them.

‘ _Coming of age- but at what cost? Why should she change? Does she have to?’_

_‘This life is atypical: should be progressing, pushing forward, but instead you do nothing but fall back…regress…why?’_

They didn’t sound like questions just about _The Bell Jar._ The questions felt like desperate pleas for someone to answer. Someone to care.

Marco ran a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve the pain, and turned the page a little more violently than he usually did. Imagining that he had the power to kiss the doubt out of Jean about the world was not going to help his blazing temperature.

He read for a little while longer, but with a lurch of his stomach realised that ill or not his pills were going to do what they always did. Rushing to the bathroom was so much harder with heat searing through every strip of muscle, and the feeling of a pummelled stomach was yet another wonderful addition to add to the twisting mess of ill that threatened to overwhelm him. He stood up, pressing a hand to his forehead as he flushed the toilet and gave himself a glance in the mirror. He was tired. He was so, so tired. _Was this how Thomas felt?_ Shaking the thoughts free, he staggered back to his bed and flopped onto it, groaning as Batman leapt up to join him. The lamp-yellow eyes were the only company he had for a while, but then Mikasa walked into his room without warning and shoved a glass of lemonade under his nose. “Drink,” she demanded.

“Good morning to you too,” he grumbled, taking the glass from her and taking a few measured gulps. The fizz travelled pleasantly down his throat and felt like it was doing some good in his stomach. “Where’s Eren?”

“Still out. He didn’t sleep for a while.” Marco closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Mikasa and Eren stayed over. Of course. He took another sip. “I think he’s worried about you.”

 _Tell me something I don’t know. Everyone’s worried about me._ Marco sighed. “What if I don’t get better?” he asked, scratching Batman behind the ears.

Mikasa frowned. “You will,” she said, as though that was obvious.

Marco shook his head. “B-but… what if I don’t?”

Mikasa was silent. He knew she didn’t have an answer to that question. He focused his attention on the ceiling, watching the bulb above them flickering like a human heartbeat. The only time his gaze wavered was when his door creaked open to reveal Eren waddling towards him wrapped in the spare duvet Sasha bequeathed to him. He plopped onto the bed still clad in the duvet, nuzzling Marco with a tired grunt of “Mornin’”, and wriggled as close as he could get.

Marco and Mikasa shared a look. Marco knew what she was thinking. Soon he wouldn’t be able to pretend; once Eren started to pick up the fact that Marco got sick a lot, that the ‘migraine pills’ he took seemed to be doing more harm than good, he would know. Eren may have been dense with people, but he wasn’t stupid. He was getting more perceptive by the day, frowning a little more at Marco’s sunny excuses and pouting his lip when Marco told him it was just bad food causing a stomach upset. He would figure it out for himself. And that was something Marco never wanted to happen. He bit his lip. “Hey…uh, Eren?”

“Mm?”

“I… I should tell you something.”

“What’s that?” Eren cracked an eye open, and Marco gulped. It was the gold eye. _Don’t think of Jean, please don’t think of him right now._ Eren was still drowsy, still half-conscious; he might not even register what Marco had to tell him. But Mikasa’s encouraging nod pushed him onward.

“I… haven’t been totally honest with you,” Marco began weakly. His tongue felt stuck in his throat. He wasn’t sure he could do this, not when he was burning up hotter than the sun and Eren wasn’t even awake enough to comprehend what was going on. He found his breath coming short. When did breathing become something he had to actively _think_ about? “I don’t want you to hate me or run away even though that’s probably w-what I deserve, but…”

“Marco.” Oh no. Eren was awake now. He had both eyes open, the dual intensity of the turquoise and gold dazzling Marco for a moment. Then he noticed how the brow was drawn down, a pout settling on his friend’s lips. “Whatever you gotta tell me, I won’t care. I’m with you all the way, remember?”

Oh, he remembered. He remembered the white hospital room, the stench of chemicals and cleanliness, and the crying that had split him in two. He remembered everything well. “E-Eren…”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Eren reached out and cupped his cheek, a small smile drifting onto his face. “It doesn’t matter what happens. I’m there for you, fucking goon that you are. And you’re there for me. We’re sort of a package deal.”

Marco bit his lip harder. He really didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to shatter Eren’s perspective of him, didn’t want to have to explain why he hadn’t told him sooner, but Mikasa was nodding and he was taking a deep breath and _oh god here it comes…_

“Hey, is anyone gonna let me in ya piece o’ shit bastards?”

Marco let out a huff of relief. _Saved by the Scotswoman. Thank the Lord._ Mikasa gave an annoyed grunt and rolled away from them both, striding to the door to let their rude interruption in. Marco could feel Eren’s eyes on him, but he shook his head ever so slightly as he listened to the conversation going on in the next room.

“I heard Twinkle was sick, what’s happening?”

“Ymir, you came at a really bad time…”

“Story o’ my fucking life, toots. So what’s he got, gripe? Dropsy? Frostbite? Wouldn’t surprise me, this place is like a fuckin’ icebox.” There was a shuffle of footsteps, and then Ymir was striding into the room with Mikasa hot on her heels. Marco also noticed a meek looking Connie following in their steps, clutching his iguana to his chest. Batman’s pupils contracted to slits as he hissed in its general direction.

“Aren’t you meant to be at work?” Mikasa was saying, hands on her hips as she stared Ymir down. Mikasa was the only person who didn’t wilt under Ymir’s gaze. Marco was sure Ymir enjoyed the power she exuded over everyone, but knowing she had next to nothing on Mikasa unsettled her.

Ymir cocked an eyebrow and folded her arms, the carrier bag she held loosely in her hand rustling against her hip. “I heard Marco was sick. The guy didn’t mind.”

“You left someone in the _chair_ when you found out?!” Connie said, his heightened pitch disturbing the lizard clinging to his chest.

Ymir shrugged. “World stops for Twinkle,” was her answer.

“But-”

“World. Stops.” Her voice took on a sharper edge, and Connie let out a small squeak and scuttled to the side, gently placing Belinda on the bed next to Eren. Eren eyed the reptile for a few seconds, before running a finger along its spiny back. Batman hissed again. Marco rolled over to tickle the cat’s chest in an act of reassurance, but the movement was noticed by Ymir. “Ah, so he is alive, then. That’s fine and fuckin’ dandy.”

Marco let out a weak smirk. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, sorry to disappoint.”

“Ah, shut your fuckin’ mouth, Twinkle, you got your fightin’ talk at least.” She jumped onto the bed a little clumsily, causing the springs to creak in alarm. Batman scuttled away to a safer place under Marco’s bed, still grumbling and meowing in distress about the large green creature that had invaded his abode, but everyone else stayed still. Eren didn’t even twitch. Marco knew he was still thinking about what hadn’t just been said, but he clammed up. He scratched a spot at the nape of Eren’s neck to make him purr like Batman and forgot about it. He only hoped that Eren would forget about it too.

Ymir, contrary to popular belief, turned out to be more of a mother hen than Sasha when it came to Marco being sick. He remembered  a time when he’d been beaten up worse than usual by a gang of thugs, and Ymir refused to let him go back to his place, dragging him by the scruff of his neck to the apartment she was then staying at and threatening him with a tattoo on the ass if he didn’t let her give him some water and at least dress some of the worse wounds. That was just how Ymir was. She wasn’t the traditional caring person, but her gruff nature gave her the compassion and care of a gangster’s mother. _Al Capone’s mother would have nothing on Ymir_ , Marco thought to himself as she brandished an entire knob of ginger root and waved it in his face. “I wasn’t sure what you had, but I know that ginger’s good for settlin’ your stomach and dealing with that fever shite you seem to be sporting.” She squinted at the root. “Though I ain’t usually using plain ginger root. Maybe you can just eat it and see how it goes.”

“Ymir, he’s not eating some raw ginger!” Mikasa intervened, shoving the herb away from Marco’s face. “I got him tonic!”

“That tastes like shit, ginger’s better.”

“Ginger’s awful!”

“Ya take that back.”

Marco covered his eyes with an arm, relishing the cool darkness eclipsing his throbbing head as they bickered around him. His fever was starting to turn to a chill for the third time that morning, and as he curled himself up in the covers and tried to stop his shivering, he heard the volume of the argument sink. At least they could take hints. But that didn’t stop them from all sitting cross legged on his bed talking amongst themselves as he sweated and shook. He didn’t mind; it made him feel part of the conversation after all, even if he was only half listening.

He let his mind drift back to the book on his bedside table, and he sighed. He hadn’t seen Jean in two days. It didn’t seem like very long, but when Jean usually made excuses to be around him 24/7 it felt a little strange. _He’s probably working on another commission_ , he justified to himself. _No big deal. He hasn’t got a reason to avoid you, so there’s nothing to worry about._ That didn’t stop him from worrying, of course, but there was precious little he could do. He wasn’t Jean’s be all and end all, he reminded himself cruelly, and he shouldn’t get too attached. It was hard when he noticed how much more Jean was smiling nowadays.

He let out a small whimper at the thought and brought everyone’s attention back to him. “Something to add to the conversation, space cadet?” Ymir asked, poking his thigh with the utmost of care.

“Not really. Just feel a little woozy.” He ran a hand back through his hair, but it felt heavier than an ice block. “If I don’t make any sense, please hit me.”

Ymir patted him on the leg again, a slightly tender look on her face. “Look, just don’t go toward the light and you’ll be just fine.”

He fixed her with as much of a glare as he could muster without it hurting. “Thanks, Ymir.”

“Any time.”

It was then that the door of the apartment sounded like it was being barged into by a herd of rhino. Everyone froze at the furious _thud_ that was then accompanied by a hail of knocking so fierce that they all leapt up and dashed to the door in case it was some kind of emergency. Marco wheezed pitifully on his sickbed and hoped to god it wasn’t something like a fire- he wasn’t sure he’d be able to drag his sorry excuse of a carcass out of the place. Besides, fire sounded warm. He wasn’t sure who got to the door first, but when Eren and Ymir retreated back with tiger snarls and hackles up he guessed they’d been told to back off. He blinked questioningly at Eren, but he just shook his head and shrugged. Huh. He didn’t know yet? He strained his hearing to pick up the sound of the door being swung open- and then he didn’t need to try hard.

“Where is he?”

_Jean._

It sounded like a demand, and an angry one at that.

“What the hell’s your problem?” he heard Mikasa ask as the door shut with a _bang_. “Look, if this is some sort of tiff I don’t know about-”

“Where is he?!”

“J-Jean, come on, don’t raise your voice like that.”

“I don’t care, where is he?”

Marco tried to sit up before Jean burst into his room, but slipped halfway and ended up hanging onto Eren’s shoulder for support. And that was when Jean ran in, tripping over his own feet and eyes wide and terrified. And he was looking straight at him. It felt like a stab in the heart, and Marco wasn’t even sure why. “J-Jean…” He tried to struggle upright, but Eren kept him where he was.

“Uh uh uh, you’re staying right here,” he said, giving Jean a glance. “With _me._ ”

Jean looked like he’d been slapped.

“Eren… come on… stop it…” Marco said weakly, giving him a small glare. Eren might as well have been spitting and hissing like Batman.

“You can’t just barge in like this!” Mikasa said, jogging into the room after him. “Honestly, have you never heard of manners?”

“You’re alright,” Jean breathed. He completely ignored Mikasa, just sagged against the doorway and let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, you’re alright, good, _fuck_. _”_ He screwed his eyes up tight before he dared open them again. “Y-you scared the shit out of me.”

“Jean…” Marco frowned and tried to sit up again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I couldn’t…”

“He’s sick, idiot, he couldn’t give you a fucking play-by play,” Eren hissed.

Jean shot him a look of utter loathing. “All I got was a text saying that he was ill, so excuse me for freaking the fuck out.”

Marco’s frown increased. “But who would…” Then it dawned on him. “Sasha,” he muttered.

Jean’s eyes fell on him. “Whoever it was, they used your phone. That usually means you’re too weak to get to the phone, so I fucking panicked, alright?” He sank against the plaster again and ran a hand through his hair. It was only then that Marco realised he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his breaths were coming short and frenzied. “Ugh… oh god… _fuck_ …”

“Look, I told you he would be okay,” came the other voice, softer and more controlled, and it was then that Armin walked into the room. He looked a little more dressed for the season than Jean, but he still looked a little rushed- a look Marco hadn’t seen on him before. He laid a hand on Jean’s shoulder, thumb working in a circle while his other arm held a slightly squirmy Claudine, before his gaze zeroed in on Eren.

Eren gulped, and slowly moved away from Marco with a sheepish smile. “Er, hey. Uh, h-how are y-?”

“Save it for someone who’d fall for it, Eren.” Armin’s tone was cold, flat, and made Eren retreat back towards the headboard of the bed. But Armin’s eyes followed him there. Marco knew no matter where Eren ran, those eyes would be on him, burning into the back of his head until he went mad with it. That was just the way Armin was. He wondered whether Eren had talked to him; by the looks of things, he’d bottled it.

Armin turned his attention back on Jean, muttering something in his ear that Marco couldn’t hear, and gave him a small smile for encouragement when Jean straightened up. Then he shot another withering glare to Eren, and it was a glare that could melt ice caps. “There’s a time and a place for petty playground fights, and here is not one of them.” He looked around at the gathering of people. “In fact, aren’t there quite a lot of you in here? Marco’s bound to be contagious.” His brows drew together, like he couldn’t quite handle being stern for too long. “Especially you, Eren. You should know you’ll pick up anything in your state.” The voice was sharp, but the words were brimming with concern.

Eren gaped at Armin, then at Marco, then gestured at Armin. “D-do you hear him? I dunno if I’m in trouble or not.”

“Oh, you’re in trouble.” Armin snapped. Claudine whined nervously in his arms, not liking the sound of conflict. He sighed. “As angry as I am at you, I don’t want you picking up anything nasty.”

“So you _care_ about me?”

Armin’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Don’t push it.”

As they were speaking, Marco noticed Jean sidling closer to his bed. His eyes wandered over to his painting in the corner, and he let a small smile grace his features before biting it back and sitting on the very edge, not too close to Marco but not close enough to get in range of Armin’s irritation. “H-how are y-” He stopped. He cleared his throat. He choked a little. “Uh, er, are you okay?” he ended up blundering out.

Marco smiled. “Well, I’m not feeling amazing, but I could be worse.” Jean’s sides were still heaving. “Jesus, did you _run_ here?”

Jean shrugged nonchalantly, though it looked more like a nervous twitch. “Wasn’t that far away. I was at Armin’s when I got the text.”

“So, let me get this straight…” Marco ran a hand over his face in an attempt to wake himself up. It didn’t work. “You got the text from Sasha… and you got up and ran?”

Jean huffed out through his nose. “Now you say it, it does sound pretty pathetic.” He shrugged. “But I got a nurse’s instincts, even if I didn’t finish uni I got the jist of it.”

Marco chuckled and slithered back down onto the bed properly. The fever may have been taking over his vocal cords when he said, “You’re such a goon,” in an overly affectionate tone, but it felt nice coming out of his mouth all the same. It felt even better when he saw the way Jean’s cheeks began to catch fire.

“Sh-shut the fuck up alright, I’m being nice here.” Jean tentatively reached out and put a hand on Marco’s forehead. Marco closed his eyes, relishing the warmth, and tried to wriggle closer so he could get more wonderful heat. “You’re burning up,” Jean stated.

“No I’m not.”

Jean blinked. “Er, yes you are, you have a temperature.”

“I’m cold,” Marco insisted.

Jean rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’re cold. Have you been taking anything?”

Marco’s mind wandered to his pills, but jean didn’t need to know that. They weren’t exactly impacting on _this_ part of his health. “Mikasa gave me this… tonic that tastes like shit,” he said. “And Ymir was saying something about ginger root…”

Jean raised a brow. “Where’s the tonic bottle?”

“Ngh, I don’t know.”

“Mikasa!” Jean shouted out. “Where’s the bottle for the tonic you’ve been giving him?” Marco jumped. Jean sounded so… professional. And distant. It was as though having his mind fixed on something blocked out all his nerves. Mikasa seemed a little startled too as she handed it over wordlessly, eyes darting between the two of them as she waited. Jean scoffed and handed it back. “It’s pretty much cough medicine. It’s got painkillers in it, but it’s not strong enough to kill whatever it is causing his fever.”

Mikasa bridled at that. “In case you weren’t aware, medicine’s expensive and this always does the trick!”

“Placebo’s a placebo no matter how much you dress it up.” Jean shrugged. “It sometimes works, but in this case there isn’t much you can do.”

“I’m gonna die,” Marco mumbled, rolling over to bury his head in the pillow. That was all his muggy mind kept telling him.

“Oh shut up, you’re not going to die,” Jean said. “You just have to take something that’s better than that tonic for your headache.”

Marco was only partly listening when Jean turned back to Armin and started talking about painkillers and paracetamols and ibruprofens and other drugs with strange names in them- Marco was used to phasing out those kinds of words for the sake of his own sanity- instead choosing to burrow closer into his pillow and try to ride out the ripples of a headache that his brain kept throwing him. He only looked up when he heard his name being called. “Hn?”

There was barely anyone left in the room. The only people that were still there were Jean, Armin and Eren sitting beside him. He could feel Eren playing with his hair, but from the look Jean was giving him he was clearly doing something to annoy Jean at the same time. Marco let out a tired little sigh and moved away from Eren’s touches, blearily looking at each person in turn. “You call me?” he murmured.

Armin gave a perfect bedside manner smile. “We’ve sent Mikasa off to get some painkillers for your headache. We managed to convince Ymir to go back and finish working, and Connie’s waiting in the living room with Sasha.” He frowned a little as Claudine wriggled in his arms, letting out an annoyed little wail that suggested she probably wanted feeding, and Armin passed her over to Jean without a word.

Marco snorted. “S’barely a living room…” he remarked as he watched Claudine nestle into Jean’s shirt with a sigh.

Armin laughed. “Well, whatever it is. We didn’t want to crowd you, it’ll make you feel a lot worse. We just wanted to know if you were okay with us being here- we wouldn’t want to intrude if-”

“No.” Marco let his gaze rest on Jean, and tried out a weak smile. “No, it’s… it’s fine…”

Jean’s eyes widened, and he looked away, staring defiantly at the floor as he folded his arms tight around Claudine. In any normal state Marco probably would have realised that his look was far softer than it usually was, that the consciousness was cracking under the weight of fever, but he didn’t see that at all. What Marco saw was that Jean was shivering. Was it really so cold in his apartment?

His look didn’t go unnoticed by Armin. The blonde cleared his throat, scratching the back of his head as he looked between them both, and glanced back to Eren. “Why don’t you and I leave Marco alone for a little while, hmm?” he suggested.

The tension Marco received on his arm made it known that Eren was torn. On the one hand, there was spending time with Armin, but the other hand it was leaving Marco on his own with Jean. Eren’s nose wrinkled. “If Marco needs to be on his own why isn’t Jean coming?”

“Jean knows a few things,” Armin said calmly. “He’s got nursing experience.”

“Don’t you have a phD?”

Armin rolled his eyes. “I’m studying for it.” Then, he gave Eren a teasing grin. “Look, what is it going to take to get you to agree to a drink with me?”

Eren’s eyes snapped open. “A d-drink?” he squeaked, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

Armin laughed. “Yes, Eren, a drink. So I can give you a piece of my mind about how ignorance breeds contempt and how you should know better and _maybe_ we can talk about something other than you after that. Sound good?”

Eren didn’t seem to be capable of speaking. He just sat there, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and Marco gave him a weak nudge to kickstart him. “Go on, Eren,” he mumbled, “you don’t need a wingman. Go for it.”

Eren gulped back a hard lump in his throat and stood up, attempting to smooth down his shirt so it didn’t look like he’d been wearing it for the past few days, and walked slowly over to Armin with a look that combined sheer terror and vibrant excitement. Marco wasn’t sure if Eren was going to jump for joy or drop down dead- either was probably appropriate. Armin raised a brow at Eren’s expression, gave another eye roll for good measure and said, “Wipe that smirk off your face, we’re having a serious talk, not a date.” Eren whimpered as he was dragged out of the room, and Marco was certain he’d hear all about it once it was over. His previous suspicions were confirmed, though; Eren hadn’t had the guts to call Armin.

But now here he was, with Jean and Claudine for company, and he relaxed against the headboard. Like this wasn’t awkward at all. They didn’t speak for a few moments, content just to look anywhere about the room if it didn’t mean locking eyes with one another, until Jean finally broke the silence. “Uh, Armin, he, uh… he’s a good guy.”

Marco nodded. “Oh yeah, he’s… he’s nice.”

“Yeah. He helped me out a lot at uni, and he’s… he’s being good to me now. Just don’t wanna see Eren fuck him over, that’s all.” Jean paused. “You think he’d do that?”

“No.” Marco shook his head. “Eren’s a lot of things, but messing with people’s hearts… that’s not him.”

Jean snorted. “Good. To be honest, I think Armin can hold his own.”

Marco chuckled. “I don’t doubt that.”

Silence fell for a minute or so as Jean walked around Marco’s room, jostling Claudine as he did so, and Marco noticed that she’d grown since he met Jean. Of course she’d grown, that much was obvious, babies grow all the time, but he never stopped to notice. The soft down on her head was quickly getting replaced by wisps of pale brown hair that could be ashen in the right light, and her kicks were getting just that little more energetic now. He smiled as Jean got closer, sitting down on the bed and placing Claudine next to him. “Hey sweetie,” Marco cooed, curling one of his fingers against her soft cheek. “How we doing, hey? Keeping your Dad in line, are you?” Claudine gurgled at the attention, and kicked her legs around. Marco looked back at Jean. “You shouldn’t put her too close. I could-”

“She won’t catch it.” Jean propped himself up, barricading her between their two bodies. “She’s had more jabs than I know what to do with. She hasn’t thanked me for it, but… you can never be too careful.” He brushed a thumb along a whorl of hair on her head. “Besides, fever’s not something you can catch. It’s just your body’s reaction to something else. The part that regulates your temperature raises your heat to kill off the nasties- but sometimes it needs a little help to work.”  

Marco frowned. “A little help…?”

Jean nodded. “You got a sponge here? Or a towel you don’t mind getting wet?”

“Uh… m-maybe in the bathroom, but-”

“I’ll go look. Keep an eye on her.” And like that, Jean was gone.

Marco looked back to Claudine, who immediately smiled like she was waiting for his attention. She gabbled nonsense and grabbed onto the strands of hair hanging in front of his face, pulling gently on them as her smile widened further. It was like she was making sure he was _actually_ there, and it melted Marco’s heart. “Heyy Princess,” he murmured, butting his head against hers. “What are you gonna do with my hair, huh? I don’t want to be bald.”

Claudine giggled like she understood, and let go to place her tiny hand on his forehead, brow furrowing in a perfect mockery of Jean minutes before. She gurgled something nonsensical and Marco chuckled deep in his throat, startling her for a brief moment before she patted his forehead again and made more noises.

Jean was back in the blink of an eye, a dark red hand towel in his grip that upon further inspection turned out to be just a little more than damp. When Marco frowned, Jean cleared his throat. “You need to regulate your temperature. Also, you’ve been sweating out through your fever and it’s probably clogging.” He rested a knee on the bed, hovering over him with a twisted frown. Marco wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but when the words ‘sponge bath’ tumbled out of Jean’s mouth he knew he definitely hadn’t been expecting that.

He felt the mere idea of it send a trickle of unease down his back. “I- er- I- J-Jean, thanks for the offer but…”

“Not an offer. A demand.” Jean’s words were simple. Blunt. And offered no way out. Marco gave a mental whimper.  He would not survive Jean touching him like that. No fucking way. “You’re weak as hell and you’re sweating like a pig, you need it,” Jean pressed.

“B-but…”

“No buts.” Jean sighed. “Look, there’s no need to be conscious, I’ve given people sponge baths before. I had a work placement at an old people’s home and trust me, that experience may have scarred me for fucking life but it made everything else a walk in the park.”

 _That wasn’t the point_ , Marco’s mind wailed at him. Even the mere thought of Jean massaging small circles into his skin with the wet towel was enough to make something down south twitch- if it happened for real, Marco wasn’t sure he’d be able to last ten minutes without tenting his far too loose tracksuit bottoms. _So much for having a dead dick,_ he thought to himself. “J-Jean, I really don’t think it’s necessary.”

Too late. Jean was already sat cross-legged on the bed, brow arched in a stern, nursely ‘I am going to fucking look after you and you are going to like it’ way, and Marco knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of convincing him of anything. “Take your shirt off,” he said, and Marco almost died from the extra heat that leapt to his cheeks. Thank god for the fever.

“I…”

“Take it off or I’ll take it off for you.”

Marco fumbled with the hem of his shirt immediately, trying not to think of how dominating Jean sounded and if that translated into other walks of life aside from nursing, and threw it off over his head with a grunt of effort. He saw Jean pause, chew on his lip like he realised what it was he was doing, but after a brief pause and a shaky sigh, he scooted closer. “Let’s do this then, shall we?” he said, in a voice that sounded a lot more strained than normal.

Marco wetted his lips and pulled himself up into a sitting position with a wince. Everything took so much _energy._ “You’re the boss,” he replied, reaching down to link his finger with Claudine’s hand so she didn’t feel left out.

Jean nodded sharply, and reached out with the towel first to swipe carefully at Marco’s temples. Marco could have moaned with how good it felt. It wasn’t just because it was Jean; the sheer relief that the lukewarm water gave to his searing flesh felt like a godsend. Jean gave the towel a squeeze, and a tiny drip of water trickled down his face. Marco inhaled sharply at the feeling. “Told you. You feel better, right?” Jean asked.

Marco could only nod.

Even though he’d been worried about how his dick was going to react to Jean practically sitting in his lap at points to run the towel over his body, Marco had to admit that Jean definitely knew what he was doing. He worked slowly, making sure that everything was within Marco’s comfort zone, and started from his temples and worked his way down to his glands, the sweep of his collar bone, and then lifted the first arm up to get at his armpit. Marco squirmed and giggled for a little while, but after Jean gave him a light whack and told him he would stop if he kept it up, Marco just had to bite his lip hard throughout the whole thing.

When Jean asked him to turn around so he could get to his back, there was a definite pause as Jean admired the tattoos he found there before he started work. The tattoo for Eren was still a little sore, and needed a bit more treatment, so Jean did that too, batting away Marco’s attempts to help with a snort and applying the cream as carefully as he was able- which turned out to be very, as Marco barely felt his fingers skim over the wounded skin. When he moved up and brushed Marco’s hair out of the way to reach the nape of his neck, Marco froze. He knew the sunflower was going to be on show. He brought his shoulders up to his neck and made to turn his head around to look at him. Jean clicked his fingers and pointed straight ahead silently. Marco obeyed the order. “Don’t worry,” he said after a moment, dampening the area just underneath the tattoo, “I won’t touch it.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper. He understood. Marco lowered his head with a sigh, and they were quiet again.

The quiet didn’t last too long, however; they were soon talking again, Marco listening through his fevered haze more than talking, but enjoying the company nonetheless. Jean started telling him about a commission he was starting for a small bistro north of the river that was just about to open. He started off subdued, but after a bit of encouragement let his enthusiasm reign free. “I was thinking of something like a load of birds in a tree, but everything in the wrong colours. Inverted, like. So it looks bold and brash, draws the eye, that sorta thing,” he was saying as he continued running the towel over Marco’s body. “And the guy said if he likes it, he’ll commission more. Might even mean a partnership, who knows?”

Marco smiled. “That sounds great, Jean. Really.”

Jean bit his lip before smiling too. “Yeah… it does, doesn’t it?”

Marco nodded. “How d’you get into art anyway, if you were studying nursing?”

“Psh, I’ve always been into it. Kind of comes with the territory though.” Jean swept the towel down the curve of Marco’s spine, doing more harm than good for the blush he caused, but carried on without noticing. “Everyone says that artists always have something missing. S’why they become artists, think the way they do. It’s just how they cope with the aftershocks.”

Marco frowned. “What d’you mean?” _He was beginning to slur. Fuck._

Jean shrugged. “Well I think you can guess I haven’t had the most chipper fucking life. But whatever got punched out of me got replaced by…that.” He gestured to his canvas. “And it ain’t that bad, all things considered.”

“Jean, you’re a great painter.” He frowned at the modest snort he got in response. “Really, you are. You can’t just…jus’ use that as your reasoning.”

Jean was quiet for a little while, and Marco felt the towel fall from his body. He didn’t mention it. He just liked being close like this, listening to Jean talk like he was peeling away a layer as a test to Marco’s character, and he hoped to everything present in the universe that he was passing. But then the towel came back into contact with his shoulder. “Blaise Pascal called it the God-shaped hole,” Jean said after a while. His voice was full of an emotion Marco couldn’t pinpoint, and he didn’t have the energy to turn his head to look. “Everyone’s got one. This big, black, foreboding hole at their centre, but some are darker and larger than others. I like to think of it as artists having those holes.” He shrugged again. “I dunno, s’just what I think.”

“So, artists miss God more than normal people?” Marco’s head was beginning to spin. Jean may have been in the mood to talk deep, but Marco’s haze was thickening to a fog. He blamed it on the fever.

Jean’s hand wavered. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think so, but then again I’m biased.”

 “Mm?” Marco asked. He hoped that sounded as genuinely interested as he felt.

Jean seemed to think so. “Well,” he began, lifting Marco’s other arm up, “sometimes there’s such a thing as too much God in your life. I went to church til I was fourteen, and trust me, I’m glad I fuckin’ left.”

“Charlie Churches, huh?”

Marco knew the kind- he’d lived it too. Church services since he was born, Sunday school every week from the day you could talk, baptisms and communions and confirmations… it was all just a kaleidoscopic mishmash in his mind from some of his earliest memories to the day he left for Trost. He didn’t mind Church that much; as a child he bored of it, as a teenager he may have been slightly more intrigued at the finer points of gospels, but he never had any drive to return to it. He did it for the happiness of his parents, and that was fine with him- so long as he held onto the knowledge that once he moved away, he would only have to do it on the very rare occasion. However, as time would have it, the minute he stepped off of Jinaean soil, he hadn’t put a foot inside a church again. Well, there was the one exception.

Jean shrugged. “Something like that. Mam found comfort in it. Gram and the rest of the family have always done it. I got dragged along for the ride, didn’t really matter what I thought.” He sighed. “It didn’t… it wasn’t… I didn’t like it there. Hated it, in fact. Kids were taught to just shut up and listen to their parents, and the parents listened to whoever decided to speak that day. There weren’t many kids there, either. We were pretty outnumbered.” The towel dropped on the bed between them, smelling a little riper than before. Marco still couldn’t see Jean’s face. “There wasn’t much room for opinions or mistakes.” He let out a small, humourless chuckle that sounded like it was choking him. “If they could see me now, could know what I was-”

“River water.”

It was only a small murmur, but it was enough to jolt Jean out of his own headspace. “Wh-what?” he said.

Marco blinked lazily. “Mm, s’like. S’like river water.”

Jean moved the towel down onto the floor, indicating that he was all done, but the frown on his face made it clear that he wasn’t finished with the conversation. Claudine, however, chose that moment to let out a small cry, staring at Jean as he fumbled for a bottle to give her. She didn’t seem to mind it was cold for once. After Jean shuffled onto the bed properly and curled Claudine along one of his arms, Marco couldn’t help but slip closer. It was like being drunk, this feeling, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was how he felt when he’d had too much, when the room was spinning and he was spewing nonsense at anyone who would listen and he wanted to go home. But where could he go now? There wasn’t anywhere left to go if he was already home.

Despite this, and despite the fact he felt like he was going to float away at any second, he felt Jean’s question pressing on his tongue. He hoped the raised brows he offered in reply were enough to prompt him on.

They were. “What do you mean, river water?” Jean asked.

Marco pursed his lips, trying to get the remainder of his jumbled vocabulary into a worthy order. “Well,” he started, “River water s’like, s’like never ending, right? Everyone thinks it’s all… meek n’ stuff… like it can’t do anything… but then you see it rushing along and pushing along all the rocks and silt and it actually has more power than anyone thought.” He wasn’t sure what had loosened his tongue; it could have been the fever, or it could have been the underlying thought that he might be on borrowed time. Still, his words just kept on rolling, like the water he was describing for the boy sat beside him. He wasn’t even sure it made sense. He was losing track of his own thought. “An’ rivers are like… so mystical an’ strong an’ endless in their, like… strongness.” He pouted as he well and truly lost the trail he’d been chasing.

Jean sniggered. “Right, okay, sure. Rivers are cool. Any reason why you’re singing their praises right now?”

Marco rolled his eyes and let out a theatrical groan that was louder than he expected it to be. “ _Honestly._ Can’t you _see_ it?” he demanded.

Jean smirked. “Nope,” he answered.

Marco made a noise like a bad-tempered horse. “It’s cus, like… _you’re_ river water, y’know? You’re so… strong, Jean, an’ it’s like… you’re brilliant.”

Jean choked, on what Marco wasn’t sure, and nearly upended the bottle onto himself. Claudine coughed as she got more milk than she bargained for, and let out a choking cry as she was then denied it. Jean was looking wildly at Marco, eyes wide open and unblinking, and Marco just smiled back at him. “Brilliant,” he repeated with a sharp nod, as if it sealed the deal.

Jean’s laugh a moment later was too shrill. “M-Marco, I think your fever’s t-talking.”  

“Mmm, don’t care.” Marco rolled even closer, his nose now resting against Jean’s thigh. He felt the muscles tense, but he butted Jean all the same. “S’true. You’re like… like a river boy.” He paused. “You’re _my_ River Boy.”

Silence. Marco didn’t hear anything for a touch too long, and when he lifted his head and raised a brow, he saw that Jean had flushed redder than a stop sign. He tilted his head to one side. “Are you gettin’ my fever?” he asked. “You look all hot.”

Jean sat there for a few breaths longer. And then he stood up like a bolt of lightning and crossed the room, running a hand over his face. Marco whined and flopped face down into the pillow nearest him. Everything was too muffled, like he was wrapped in bubble wrap and the outside world was unable to pop its way in. The floating feeling was beginning to feel suffocating. Claudine squawked in Jean’s arms, unhappy that she’d been moved, but Jean ignored her. “What’s wrooong?” Marco mumbled into the pillow. It took him a while to realise he couldn’t be heard and lifted his head, but Jean still had his free hand over his mouth and his eyes darting to every corner of the room. Marco’s concern poked through the bubble wrap.

 “You can’t…” Jean sounded winded. He raked the hand through his hair with a shudder, and tugged at a strand as he went. “You can’t _say_ shit like that, mate, _fuck._ ”

“Like what?”

“Like… _that_.” Jean shook his head, lips drawn into a fine line. He was still burning up. “Why do you have to be so fucking sappy when you’re feverish, Jesus Christ…”

Marco jutted out his bottom lip. “Come back,” he whined.

Jean stiffened. “I don’t think I should,” he squeaked.

“Pleaaaase.” Marco wiggled to the end of the bed. “I’ll be good!”

Jean gaped at him with the same degree of horror he’d give a zombie popping out of the ground. The intensity of Marco’s whining weakened him eventually though, so with a groan he moved back to the bed and sank back against the headboard with a mumble of, “you promise you won’t say that stuff again?” Marco promised. Well, he butted his head against Jean’s hipbone, but it was the same difference…right? Jean didn’t tell him off, at least; he just let out a small, barely there sigh and patted the top of his head. Marco hummed pitifully and willed the squirming in his stomach to stop. Sickness was something he was used to. He could handle sickness. The cotton in his head was slowly seeping away, bit by bit, and Marco wasn’t sure if it was due to the wet towel or the company. He thought it may have been a mixture of both.

Jean let Claudine lie freely on his chest, her movements slowing as she began to slip into slumber, and Marco gave him a small smile. Jean blushed. “You look like you’re comin’ down wit’ it too,” he slurred, shuffling closer.

The redness to Jean’s cheeks increased. “N-no, I don’t think so,” he said.

“Your cheeks are red.”

“I’m good. I don’t get ill.”

“S’good thing. You so skinny.” Marco patted Jean’s shoulder. “You’d probably…keel over if you got sick.”

Jean snorted. “Pity the non-believer.”

Marco curled in closer, Jean’s body a comforting well to sink into. He had a vague notion of Jean going rigid, but the muscles slowly relaxed the longer he lay there, shutting his eyes so he could listen to the way Jean and Claudine breathed together. He felt his own breath slowing, his own heart stopping the race it was trying to run and settle into an amble. Once he was sure Jean was comfortable, he asked, “Why didn’ you like it when I called you River Boy?”

Jean twitched at the name. Marco’s head was too close to Jean’s shoulder to note the expression on the other boy’s face. He opened an eye all the same, straining to catch a glimpse, but he didn’t need to. Jean’s face turned towards him, red-faced and awkward, his teeth grazing the skin of his bottom lip. Claudine barely turned in her sleep. Marco waited as Jean’s eyes flickered over every part of his face, sizing up every flaw, every scar, every hint of weakness he possessed, before he could speak. When he did, it didn’t sound as choked as he had before. “It makes me feel… odd,” he answered. “Makes me feel good.”

“Hnn, feeling good shouldn’t be an odd thing.” Marco cushioned his head with a hand, watching him.

Jean’s pressure on his lip increased. “It is for me.”

“Oh.” Marco’s gaze wandered downwards. “W-well, maybe you should get used to it more. Feeling good, I mean.”

Jean let out an audible gulp. “Maybe.” He let out a large sigh, Claudine rising up on his chest. “You just… you spoke like a writer.”

Marco blinked. “Was one, once.”

“Y-you were?”

Marco nodded. “Mmhmm.”

“What did you write about?”

Marco closed his eyes. “Happy endings,” he replied.

“Why did you stop?”

Marco scrunched his eyes tighter. “Ngh, realised they didn’t exist.”

Jean sighed again. Marco opened his eyes to see a sad little smile playing across Jean’s face. “Tell me about it, Ponytail. Tell me about it.”

Marco bit his lip. It was true that he hadn’t believed in happy endings. After you get the one person you love torn away from you without much warning, it was bound to leave you jaded. He never thought it was possible to trust life again after what had happened with Thomas; it left a bad taste in his mouth that was worse than any pill he had to swallow. Why would he sit there writing about things like love and beauty, when every time he wrote the word his blood curdled and his eyes itched with the tears threatening to break free? But as he lay there next to Jean, watching the way his eyes followed every freckle on his skin, Marco didn’t feel so jaded anymore.

He glanced down at Jean’s free hand, the one not resting on Claudine. It was so close to his own, lifeless between them on the bed. He bit his lip. This wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be happy with the way things were. He was meant to be content when the only contact was a playful push or a teasing hair ruffle. That was all he was allowed to do, and he was supposed to be _happy_ about it. Why did he have to keep wanting more? Marco let out another, slightly smaller sigh and kept his gaze on that hand, thinking it through. It would make things weird- wouldn’t it? But Jean seemed more relaxed- didn’t he? Marco wanted to smack his head with the heel of his hand. This was pathetic.

He told himself it was the fever acting when he reached out and brushed their hands together.

Jean’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t drag them away.

Marco forced himself to breathe. _Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic._ He tried tracing a tiny pattern on Jean’s skin with a finger, and glanced at him for affirmation. Jean was watching him like a hawk, eyes blown out around his tawny irises that flashed gold every time he flickered them down to their hands and back up. He didn’t look scared. He didn’t look comfortable either. Marco swallowed painfully.

He took the plunge and threaded their fingers together, his fever-warm hand against Jean’s icy cold one, and bit his lip again. “I-is this okay?” he asked, looking back at Jean. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jean looked alarmed or scared- Marco was terrified, his pulse beating like the wings of a bird that threatened to burst out if he took his bravery any further.

Something bobbed in Jean’s throat as he gulped. It felt like time was stretched taut before Marco felt fingers squeeze back. When he focused on Jean, he saw a small nod. It took him a little longer to mumble, “S…S’fine.” He gulped again. “T-this isn’t…”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Marco said, too quickly and too choked. Jean didn’t want to make things weird. That’s what he said before. And that was just fine, even if Marco was making things weirder than weird’s definition. “I mean… I just… want you to know I’m here. To listen. If you want.” He rubbed his thumb against Jean’s before realising that was probably a little too tender for a platonic hand-hold. _What was he doing?_

Jean’s brow furrowed like he wasn’t sure Marco was being honest (which, in all honesty, was a reasonable assumption to make) but he said nothing more. Their hands lay entangled within each other on the bed, the single connection anchoring Marco to reality even when his fever surged back with a vengeance and had him breaking out in sweats again. Jean was ever patient, moving Claudine from his chest and reaching for the towel that was definitely going to be thrown out afterwards to smooth it across Marco’s brow or convulsing stomach, but one thing that didn’t change was the fact that their hands, no matter what, stayed stubbornly connected like their own personal little lifeline.

* * *

Marco woke up a few hours later alone, but better.

Running a hand back through his hair and snagging it in the knotted parts, he wondered if everything with Jean had just been part of a very well-constructed delusion; his brain conjuring up something so cruel was worse than the nightmares. But his head didn’t feel so thick anymore. It was like a poisonous fog had cleared, and left everything a little tender in its wake. He cushioned the back of his head with a hand and looked up at the ceiling, trying to control his breathing again. He felt a chill steal through him, and remembered that he didn’t have a shirt on. His skin was pimpled against the cold air blowing through his room thanks to an open window Marco didn’t remember propping open. Maybe his fever had gone, too. He barely had chance to pull on a previously worn hoodie when his phone let out a blaring alarm for his pills. Someone stepped into the room like they were waiting for it, and when he stood up to cross the room they stopped him with a hand to his chest. “You feel better,” they observed. He knew that voice.

“Much better, Mikasa,” he said, patting her hand, “thank you. Where did you hide my pills?”

She brought the bottle out from her back pocket, shaking the contents with a small smile. “I was going to wake you up,” she said. “Seems you didn’t need it.”

Marco chuckled and took the pot, walking back over to his bed and grabbing a glass of water left on the side. His gaze wandered onto _The Bell Jar_ as he took a gulp to force the pills down. He still felt whoozy, but the fever was gone. That was a start. “Was Jean here?” he asked.

Mikasa blinked. “You don’t remember?”

“I do, but it’s hazy.”

She paused, but nodded. “Yeah, he’s here.”

Marco’s chest spiked. If Jean was there, that meant that the talking… the bathing… the hand holding… that all happened too? And he was _still here_? “Where is he?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible despite almost choking on his last pill.

Mikasa inclined her head to his door. “Out on the fire escape.”

She didn’t ask why Marco shuffled to his feet, or why he staggered over to the doorway. She just let him go with a sad smile, and Marco was grateful. He sometimes wondered what it was like to be on the outside looking in on him, and if Mikasa had always been pressed up to the window so fiercely.

He bundled his hands in the pockets of the hoodie as he stepped into his living room barefoot, noticing a babbling Claudine led on Sasha’s bump in the middle of the sofa. Sasha was snoring softly, waking every minute or so with a particularly loud squeak of Claudine’s, and didn’t notice Marco slip past. The more he looked around, the more people he saw; Connie sprawled across the floor with his head propping Sasha’s foot up, Eren curled up like a cat next to Batman in the corner, Ymir snoring into her own armpit on the little table in the centre whilst risking a serious back injury. He bit back his smile as he looked at each one in turn, realising that these were his _friends_ , his own manufactured little family that were camped out on his floor with the mould and mildew because they cared about him, and it made his heart swell. He would have to thank them all later. At the moment, though, he could see a rather slender silhouette out on the fire escape, and that was where he was going.

He carried on, crouching to get out of the window without having to open it up any further and wake anyone. Jean didn’t move when Marco stumbled out onto the thin platform, his whole posture drawn downwards and towards the city. The dirt on the ground crunched under his feet like sand on a beach, and he flung his hood up to keep the cold from his face. He looked to Jean, and sidled closer.

Jean was looking out over the city, chin propped on his folded arms as he leant onto the decades-old railings holding him up, and his eyes looked like they were burning tiny fires in the shades of grey outside. Marco leant on the railings beside him, and chanced a look over. Jean’s cheeks were pink, with the cold or the proximity to him Marco wasn’t sure, but after a moment the fiery eyes flicked over to him. Marco cleared his throat. “What do you think of the view?” he asked in a hushed voice.

Jean looked him up and down, a puff of air escaping him. “It’s good,” he admitted. “Feels like you can see the whole world up here.”

Marco smiled. The blonde part of Jean’s hair was blowing in the slight wind, and it kept hiding his gaze from Marco. Even the tiny slivers of tawny he had the chance of seeing looked beautiful. He swallowed painfully. Jean kept changing his mind, eyes flicking from Marco’s face to the city stretched beneath them, and it felt like he was trying to think what was acceptable to say next. After a moment of silence, Jean fixed his gaze firmly on the cityline and muttered, “Told you sweating it out would break the fever.”

Marco opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it a breath later and just chuckled. “Yeah,” he agreed, ducking his head into the crook of his elbow as he leant there. “Yeah.”

They both watched the progress of a few small cars in the street below for a few minutes, the silence dragging out for longer than was usually comfortable. Marco wondered if Jean regretted coming to Trost. After all, everything seemed to have gone downhill for him after coming there. Marco could say the same thing about himself, but he was getting accustomed to the way Trost seemed to wrap everyone in its chokehold of promises and false hopes. There was nowhere left for him to go, either; Jean might have someone back home, back where he came from that could offer him shelter. But as he glanced at Jean and saw his jaw clench under the scrutiny, he knew that wasn’t the case. Jean was as adrift in the city as he had been once, but he hoped that it was changing for him now.

“Not wearing shoes out here is asking for trouble though, smartass.”

“Hmm?” He looked down at himself and shrugged. “Oh, it’s alright.”

“Like hell it is.” Jean raised a brow at him. “Do you wanna get sick? That it?”

Marco sighed. _Now would be a perfect time…_ “No, Jean. I don’t want to get sick. I just… wondered where you were. I saw Claudine with Sasha.”

Jean’s brow evened out at that. “Was Sasha awake?”

“Would you kill her if I said no?”

Jean smirked. “Nah, she was knackered. The baby was keeping her up.”

Marco blinked. “The baby?”

“Yeah, hers. It was kicking. I felt it.” Jean rummaged around in his back pocket for his cigarettes and huffed when he realised he didn’t have any. “She’s brave, going through it on her own.”

“Well, she’s not alone.” When Jean frowned, Marco explained, “she’s got all of us behind her. We’ll support her no matter what. It’s what families do.” He smiled. “We look out for each other. We all looked out for Eren when he made his dumb decisions, we looked out for Mikasa when she was going through a hard time… it’s just what we do.”

Jean gave him a wistful smile. “Yeah, well. I wish I had that when I started out.”

“You have it now.” Marco coughed awkwardly when he saw Jean’s cheeks heat up a little, and pointed to a spot in the distance. “S-see over there?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s where I used to live. With my aunt, remember I said?”

Jean nodded, squinting at the little house Marco was pointing at. “Looks nice over there.”

“We lived over her shop. It was nice, modest but it was big enough.” Marco sighed. “When she died, I had to move out. Turns out she wasn’t as rich as she said she was and the house and shop paid off the funeral. Should’ve seen the look on everyone’s face when her will got read out and it said that if anyone were to have it, it would be me. I guess she got the last laugh on my parents. And me, if truth be told, seeing as I never saw that place again.” He turned to see Jean’s gaze transfixed on the house, brows furrowed and eyes blazing with interest. “Now, I don’t want much in life. I don’t ask for much. But… I’d like to have that place back. Maybe open a shop, something small, maybe like what I have right now but a busy one.” He turned back to the house. “It’s healthy to dream. Gives you something to fight for.”

Jean pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I used to think that one day I’d get out of this place,” he said finally. Marco looked at him as he cleared his throat. “When I was with Hitch in a big house on the outskirts, I thought that I had a chance. Even if we hated each other’s guts, we could get out together if we worked hard enough. Now I just want…” He trailed off and looked back to the apartment, and Marco knew where his eyes were going. Back to Claudine, resting with Sasha.

“You’re doing great,” Marco said.

Jean scoffed. “No, I’m not.”

“There’s no right or wrong way to being a father, Jean. You can’t really look it up. You have to take it one baby step at a time.” Marco smiled, and nudged him gently. “You’re a good father.”

Jean gave him a sideways glance, eyes widening ever so slightly. And then, he reached out his hand. Marco eyed it for a few moments, before he saw the fingers wiggle. “Look, do you want me to fucking freeze, come _on_ ,” Jean hissed. Marco twitched, and hesitantly slipped his hand into Jean’s. Jean made sure he was looking as far away from Marco as possible, but that didn’t stop his ears from turning red at the very tips. Marco felt an ounce of pressure on his hand as Jean squeezed it, and blushed himself. “Th-thanks,” Jean managed to get out. “T-thanks, for being you.” Marco’s blush doubled in its intensity. “You’re such fucking sunshine, and I… it sucks seeing you down. Or ill. So just… look after yourself, alright?” He squeezed again. “I don’t even fucking say thank you that often, but you even got me doing that, for fuck’s sake...”

And then the contact was gone, and Marco’s toes felt like they were going to freeze off, and Jean noticed the way he was dancing from foot to foot. Amid whacks from Jean and a curt telling off about blood circulation and fevers and Marco ‘really fucking pushing it you fucking asshole’, Marco found himself laughing.

Baby steps. Things were taken in baby steps.

Maybe, just maybe, he was okay with that.


	12. We'll Figure All This Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayyy new chapter time friends! :D 
> 
> This feels like a long time coming, I'm not sure why- maybe it was, who knows? I've been in a bit of a funk recently, and got started on this chapter a lil late, so that's probably why it's taken so long to come out. But, alas, it is here now! *part poppers*   
> So we got a lot of focus on some other characters in this chapter, namely everyone's favourite little fuck up, and lots of adorable moments too. I swear. This is a nice chapter. I think. My view is skewed a li'l. 
> 
> Anyway, there is a new tag added onto this fic for agoraphobia (long time coming, trust me) and there is a moment in this chapter that tackles it, just as a warning to anyone who might not be down for that! 
> 
> Thanks again for all the support I'm getting for this fic, I super appreciate it and I love that you guys are enjoying this so much! As always, my tumblr ask box is always open if you wanna ask any questions relating to this fic or whatnot, and you can always ask anything in the comments too- I always answer! (even if it is a bit delayed sobsob)
> 
> My tumblr: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

“And then you kissed, right?”

“Wha- NO.”

“Bollocks, you definitely did.”

Marco groaned into his coffee. It had only been a few days since he’d been given a clean bill of health from Jean, and the rumours were already flying around. He’d spent the majority of his ‘recovery’ limited to his bed, with Jean insisting that the more bedrest he got the better, but he had to admit it could have been a lot worse. Jean hadn’t left his apartment, stubbornly lying on the floor beside his bed for the first few nights. After a bout of shivering that got Marco panicky, Jean gave in and crawled into Marco’s bed with him. Trying not to hold him like he wanted to was tough on Marco; with every gentle breath and shuffle towards him, he felt his willpower crumble just that little bit more. At least he had a reason not to be close to him; no matter what Jean said, Marco was not going to let him catch it. But the hint of heat between them, the promise of a warmth he wanted to reach out and grab so badly had been enough to drive him mad. When they were conscious, he could pretend that they were just harmless friends. Asleep, it was far harder.

It certainly didn’t help when Eren Jaeger was grinning over his coffee cup at him in a busy shop like he knew everything about his love life.

“No we didn’t, Eren,” Marco said for the umpteenth time, stressing every syllable to make sure his friend got the picture. “We just talked.”

Eren didn’t let it drop. “Sometimes that’s even worse!” His grin just got wider. “What’s so bad about kissing him, anyway? If you’ve thought about going down on him, you’ve _definitely_ thought about kissing him.”

Marco snorted coffee up his nose. He shot Eren a dark look. “Can we just leave it? I thought you were bringing me out in celebration of good health?”

“Well, I lied,” Eren shrugged, twirling a straw between his fingers as he spoke. Eren wasn’t dressed for the weather, as usual; he looked the epitome of an 80s lovechild, with dark denim shorts that were a size too small in order to hug his body _just right_ and a fluorescent pink hoodie that looked thin as paper. Underneath? Marco was pretty sure the bright yellow top was most likely a vest. _Jesus Christ._ Marco was wrapped up in coats and scarves, and Eren was lounging around like it was the middle of summer. Marco wondered if it was because he was trying to make a strange sort of statement, or whether he was actually _that_ hot. His stomach twisted at the thought. Eren didn’t seem to care. “Besides, I haven’t seen you since Dickmancer took it upon himself to look after you.”

Marco took a swipe at him, but Eren ducked in time. “Shut up! You just decided to keep your distance.”

“Yeah, well after I had that chat with Armin, I thought it was probably best.”

Marco frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we uh… we talked.” Eren cleared his throat a little too obviously. “And, uh, well… I realised I was a bit of a dick at New Year’s to Jean. I mean, a massive dick.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Understatement of the century.”

“Look, I’m sorry, alright? That was why Armin walked out, you were right. He and Jean are friends, and he knew about the baby. Well, he didn’t know _exactly_ , but he guessed. He said if Claudine wasn’t Jean’s direct family he’d probably have panicked and shipped her off to another family member, niece or not.” Marco hated how much the idea of Claudine being given to someone else stung. “I’ll apologise to Jean or some shit once I get my act together, just let me wander round with my tail between my legs for a while.”

Marco sighed. That was the best he was going to get. Might as well embrace it. “That’s fine, Eren,” he replied, taking another sip of his coffee. Mocha with extra sprinkles, just as he liked it. Eren remembered the strangest of things. “Kinda glad Armin talked to you. You wouldn’t have listened to me if I’d said anything.”

Eren dropped his mouth open. “I would _too,_ ” he said, scandalised by the mere suggestion.

“I mentioned it. Twice. You ignored it.” Marco leaned back in his seat. “Besides, you’d think I was just sucking up to Jean.”

“Well you do kiss his arse on multiple occasions, wouldn’t be a far leap.”

Marco huffed and flicked a sugar sachet at him, watching it bounce off his nose. “I can still play the sickness card you know.”

“That is a long-tired card.”

“I’ll still play it, and you’ll still feel guilty.”

Eren gave him a sour look, but stirred his own coffee and said no more. He was starting to get dark circles under his eyes, and a haggard look to his expressions that made it obvious he wasn’t getting much sleep. He was still full of the same Eren-like energy, but Marco knew it was forced, more now than ever. The drugs he’d been hooked on had kept him twitchy and alert to the point of mania, but now everything was slowing down and dragging him back to a normal pace it was starting to show. He wondered if Eren had to take anything to stave off the cravings for the drug, or whether he was going off cold turkey. If he was, it would account for the shivers that seemed to wrack his system. Being diagnosed with HIV was bad enough- having to come down off of hard drugs was something else entirely. His immune system was already shot to pieces. It would only take another little nudge…

He shook himself, trying not to think too hard about it, and asked, “How are things with Armin, anyway? You guys patched up?”

Eren straightened up. Took a sip of coffee. Coughed. “Uh, w-well… you could say that…” he said, taking another gulp before he was ready. He nearly choked on that mouthful, too.

Marco grinned. Eren being uncomfortable? This was new. “Did you go back to his place?”

“W-well yeah,” Eren admitted, “b-but not like that! This was different.”

Marco blinked. “Different?”

“Yeah… like…” Eren scrunched up his face as he tried to find the right words to choose. When he finally found them, he had to take a breath to scramble them into the right order. “I don’t just wanna fuck him, Marco. I just… this is different. He’s not… he’s just… he’s something else.”

Marco couldn’t help the flush of pleasure that spread across his cheeks. Eren was mumbling like a shy teenager, poking the remainder of a cake he’d ordered around the plate like he suddenly wasn’t hungry as his face started to blush bright red at the attention. It was… well, adorable was what it was. Not that Eren would take kindly to that. Marco just chuckled and rested his chin on his palm as he kept the grin.

“What?!” Eren squeaked.

Marco raised a brow. “Oh, you have it bad.”

“What do I have?”

Marco chuckled again, picking up his coffee to take a long, leisurely sip. It was nice being on the teasing end for once. “The _Hook.”_

“Oh fuck you, no I don’t!”

“You so do.”

“No I do not!”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”

“Do too, do too, do too.”

Eren ended up throwing the entire pot of sugar sachets at Marco, causing one of the baristas to come over and give them a warning. Marco was still rubbing his shoulder, muttering that it was going to bruise, when Eren spoke up. “All I know is that Armin’s a really good guy, Marco. I don’t know what the fuck _this_ is, but I sure as shit don’t want to mess it up.” He sighed. “D-do you think I will?”

Marco frowned. Eren being uncomfortable and lacking confidence all in one hour? Something really _was_ serious. “Eren,” he said, leaning forward on the table, “you are the kind of person who doesn’t do subtlety. You look like you’re overflowing with confidence but you worry about _everything._ You think you’re suave like James Bond, but you’re about as smooth as Hugh Grant on a bad day-”

“Steady now.”

“- but Armin knows that. He’s got to know you a little more now, and if he had a problem with your idiocy he would have left long ago.”

“He’s my therapist,” Eren deadpanned.

“Not technically.”

Eren sighed. “He’s so great though, Marco. And he said that… that he wants to get to know me _even_ more. And c’mon, you said it yourself, I’m a first class idiot. I’m a tool.”

Marco took hold of the hand that strayed to the ties on Eren’s hoodie and held it tight. “Eren, I’m not going to lie to you. You can be an idiot. You can be a little coarse. But you’re also funny, and lively and cute. And it’s obvious that Armin wants to be friends with you, at the very least. He said so himself. And also,” he smiled, “you have a good butt.”

Eren’s mouth split into a smile. “I h-have a good butt?” he repeated.

“You have a _great_ butt.”

Eren thought about it for a little while. Then, his smile grew wider, and brighter. “Awesome.”

“Excuse me,” a customer said behind them, “but I am trying to enjoy my coffee, I do not want to hear your vulgar language.”

“Are you jealous cus my butt’s better than yours?” Eren asked, eyebrows raised in genuine concern.

After convincing the enraged man behind them not to make a scene and ruin everyone else’s morning, Marco dragged Eren away to another table with a promise that he wasn’t going to annoy any other patrons. If Eren were in a worse mood, he probably would have messed with the poor guy even more. But Marco’s reassurance seemed enough for Eren’s worries to drift away, and Marco couldn’t help being amused by how simple it was.

Eren talked a little freer after that, eyes large and alive as he told Marco how Armin was organising a meeting for Eren’s support group out of the clammy, crumbling walls of the social centre and somewhere more ‘friendly’. “I told him to put it in a bar,” Eren said, “but he said that we’re not meant to be drinking alcohol on our medication.” Marco just smiled. Seeing Eren so happy was a breath of fresh air. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it in all its genuine glory; he made a mental note to thank Armin when he next saw him.

Once their coffees were finished (and Eren tried to run out before the bill for his cake was called up) Marco got a text from Jean. He read it as they left the warmth of indoors, sniggering at the griping his texts were famous for. He didn’t think Eren noticed. He had. “You’re really fond of him, aren’t you?” Eren muttered.

Marco paused. Eren was watching him with a smile that felt tinged with something else. Sadness, perhaps. He fiddled with his hoodie ties some more, sniffing to cover up the way he’d looked at him, and Marco couldn’t help but bite his lip and nod. “Yeah,” he admitted, raking a hand through his hair, “I… I really am. I don’t wanna be, but…”

Eren frowned. “Why not?”

Marco stopped short, plunging his hands into his leather jacket pockets. “A load of things,” was his answer. The one they both heard, however, was ‘ _Thomas_ ’.

Any attempt at a smile from Eren failed to show on his face. He took a step closer, brows drawn together like he was the one in pain, and he tugged on Marco’s arm. “C’mere,” he said. When Marco looked confused, Eren tugged on his arm again. “C’mon.” Marco eventually let him pluck his arm out of his pocket and lace their fingers together. As Marco looked down at them, biting down on his lip extra hard, Eren murmured, “I miss him too. But you know what he wanted.”

“He wanted to get better?” The words felt cold and dead on his tongue.

Eren let out a sigh. “Well, yeah, that, but he wanted you to be happy. And… even if you could do a million times better than this guy, he makes you smile. You may be worth a million of him, but if it just takes one grumpy bastard called Jean Kirschtein to make you happy, then…” He shrugged, a weak smile falling onto his features at least, “why push that aside?” He squeezed Marco’s hand a little, before setting off across the busy road next to them. Marco had to stumble to keep up.

Armin really had worked his magic on Eren. Even if it was a fleeting thing, something that gave way to the old bitterness and anger Eren had contained inside him for Jean after a day or so, it was there for now, nestled away for Eren to draw from. Marco beamed and ruffled Eren’s hair playfully amid his squawks and protests. And maybe Eren was right, he thought as they melted into the stainless steel crowd of a Trost morning: why should he push it aside?

Eren walked with him to his shop, making inappropriate comments every time a text from Jean appeared on Marco’s phone, and everything felt comfortable again. It was like a cloud had been lifted without causing a downpour, and Marco was grateful for it. He would be lying if he didn’t think back to that one night with Eren, but his friend seemed so oblivious to it that he guessed all was forgotten. After firing off a text to Jean telling him when he would be finished at work, he stopped outside the little shop with a frown. Eren stopped too. “Eren…” Marco began.

“Hm?”

“You live in the opposite direction. Or if you’re going back to mine-”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I’m, er… going to the library.” He gave Marco an awkward smile and looked on down the street. “It’s a little further and to the left, right?”

Marco blinked at him. “Well, yeah, but why are you going there?”

Eren shrugged. He started to fiddle with his hoodie ties again. His legs were starting to pimple from the cold. Eren didn’t suit the cold. “Do I need an excuse?” he asked, drawing his arms around himself to keep himself as warm as he could.

Marco frowned. “Uh, no, I guess not… but you’ve never been to the library before.”

“It’s always a good time to start,” Eren scoffed, stamping his feet on the pavement to keep the blood flowing properly.

“Eren, you didn’t even go into a library at university.” Marco’s frown deepened. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you pick up a book that didn’t have pictures in it.” He paused. “Can you even read?”

“Oi!” Marco got a whack for that. “I’m just going to a library, _jesus_ if I knew I was best friends with the Spanish Inquisition I wouldn’t have taken you out for coffee.”

Marco threw his hands up in surrender. “Sorry I asked.” When Eren looked back down the stretch of path again, Marco added, “but you wouldn’t know.”

Eren raised a brow. “What?”

Marco grinned. “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Oh FUCK YOU.”

Marco watched, clutching his arm from where he had received the harshest punch known to man, as Eren headed off towards the library moments later, his vibrant form cutting him out of the suits and skirts like an exotic bird. The bright pink of the hoodie was soon swallowed up by the city, but it still remained in Marco’s mind. He would have to bully the answer out of him another time.

Eren remained on his mind throughout the duration of his day, even when Marlow shouted at him for drifting off into a daydream and almost slicing his hand open with one of his tools. He seemed to be a constant in his head, sat on the pinwheel of concern that now included Jean too. Marco couldn’t help thinking about them both, worrying about them, hoping that someday something would work out for them both. He sighed as the minute hand of a tiny antique watch finally began to make its jaunty circuit around its face. The sigh attracted Marlow’s attention. “What’s your problem, Freckles?” he asked, the picture of kindness as he threw a newspaper at him. “Not daydreaming about Blondie are you?”

Marco threw the paper right on back at him. “If I was, I’d never tell you,” he replied.

“Glad you’re feeling better, at least. You sounded like shit on the phone. It’s a good thing Sasha forced you to stay home.”

“I don’t think I would have had a choice in the matter,” Marco laughed, “seeing as everyone else jumped on the bandwagon too. I think Mikasa would have tied me down if I tried getting up.” At the mention of Mikasa, Marlow’s face heated up and he turned back to sorting another donation box. Marco grinned. “Oh yeah, I forgot. How are things with Mikasa?”

Marlow twitched. He buried his head back into the box and made as much noise as possible rooting through it all. “They’re fine,” was his gruff response.

“Only fine?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You were full of the joys of spring about it the other day.”

“Can we not talk about it?” Marlow muttered, his head popping back out of the box to give Marco a look that was close to pleading. “I already feel enough of an idiot as it is.”

Marco frowned. “What do you mean?”

Marlow paused. The look on his face suggested how much he realised he’d messed up trying to ‘not talk about it’. “Okay, if I tell you this I swear to fuck you better not say anything to anyone else,” he said eventually, running a hand through the buzzed part of his hair.

Marco blinked. “Uh- sure, yeah, I won’t say a word.”

Marlow kicked the box away from him and sat on the stool next to Marco, his eyes fixed on the little box of watches and clocks that Marco was in the middle of tweaking. “I asked her,” he mumbled.

Marco raised his brows. “Asked her what?”

Marlow glared at him. “If she thought the moon was made of cheese. What the fuck do you think I asked her?”

Marco let his mouth fall into an ‘o’ shape. He knew exactly what had happened. “Ohhh, you asked her _out_.”

“Well fucking done.”

Marco exhaled slowly. It came out like a whistle. “Shit.”

“Yeah, fucking _shit_. She said she was flattered but she couldn’t say yes.” Marlow put his head in his hands and growled with frustration. “I crashed and fucking burned and I hate myself for it. I couldn’t believe I was so tactless, I should know better than that. She’s worth so much more than my shitty question about dinner, ugh. I should have waited, maybe I could have been more romantic about it…”

“That probably would have made it worse,” Marco admitted. When Marlow raised his head, confusion clouding his gaze, Marco continued, “Hasn’t she told you?”

“Told me what?”

Marco sighed. _Oh, Mikasa. I know what you meant, but only because I **know.** You just assume everyone will understand your far too subtle ways. _He couldn’t help but feel sorry for his friend, staring at him with large eyes like he was either about to win a holiday or get kicked in the face. He hadn’t seen Marlow look so hopeful before. It was a strange look on him, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He twirled his screwdriver around in his hands, thinking. He eventually looked back at Marlow, still wide-eyed and intrigued, and said, “Mikasa’s trying to tell you, in a really vague way, that she’s aromantic. She’s got as much tact as a hairbrush, though.”

A line appeared between Marlow’s brows. He lost the hopeful look, but just looked more confused. “She’s aro?” he repeated. “But you two-”

“It was one of the reasons it didn’t work.” Marco shrugged. “She likes being around people, and she genuinely cares about others- but not in a romantic, ‘I want to have your babies’ way.”

“Oh.” Marlow’s eyes snapped open. “OH!” He jumped off his stool with such force it toppled to the floor. Marco jumped, and stared up at him as he tried to calm his racing pulse. Marlow looked… _happy._ Beyond happy, he looked _ecstatic_. “Oh thank _god_! That’s great!”

Marco gawped at him. “It is?”

“Yeah!” Marlow grinned as he ran a hand through his hair again, practically bouncing on his heels a he started to pace the small alley behind the counter. “I just thought she’d hated me, that I’d slipped up and she didn’t want to be around me but HAH.” He let out a breathless, giddy laugh as he spun back to the stunned Marco. “She still wants to know me. She’s just aro, and that’s fine!” He let out a huge sigh of relief. “I don’t care about whether or not she wants to date me- I guess I did at first, and I still have a crush on her, I know- but just… being around her has made me realise I wouldn’t care if we were just friends. I just really enjoy her company, you know?”

Marlow wasn’t usually the talkative kind. He tended to make a few choice comments, turn back to his books or work or own headspace and that was it. But seeing him talk so excitedly, half-skipping as he paced, made Marco smile. “A-and I don’t even care if she doesn’t wanna do the whole kissing thing or the hugging or the hand holding… just… being a friend is enough…” He then cast Marco an awkward look. Maybe he thought he’d said too much- or maybe he realised who he was talking to. To Marco’s surprise, however, Marlow just gave a wry chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. “S-sorry, got ahead of myself. Sometimes I just… do that.”

“You haven’t done it around me and I’ve known you for two years,” Marco replied.

“W-well maybe not as much as I think I do. Just… yeah. It’s… it’s good.” Marlow let out a small huff and disappeared into the stock room for a while. Marco got a warm mug pressed into his arm a minute or two later, and that was the end of the discussion. The sudden shift in behaviour was a little startling, but Marco was used to it. He practically lived with Eren, after all. Marlow was definitely happier after that; more than once Marco caught him whistling as he worked, and he even smiled to a few customers that came in. But he’d teased enough for one day. Instead, he sat and drank down his slightly too strong coffee and went back to fixing more of the little gizmos Marlow had dumped his way.

The day was busier than normal, with people far more willing to spend their Christmas bonuses on knick-knacks and antiques, and Marco found himself parting with a few of his newly fixed clocks and watches with a promise he’d hold one he was in the middle of repairing for someone else. When they gave him a two digit deposit, he could only gabble his thanks.

They were both still in a good mood when the bell jingled an hour before they were due to close. Marco didn’t even have to look up- the excited babbling was enough for his chest to throb and his eyes to brighten. He turned around on impulse, his eyes meeting Jean’s and smiles springing onto both their faces. Gone were the times where every lukewarm smile cast his way was a rarity; Jean smiled far more often now.

He was using the carrier again, and Claudine was kicking and squirming and squeaking with delight on his chest. He’d turned her so she could see out again, and Marco’s chest throbbed even more when he saw that he was the one her gaze was landed on. “Hey, sweetie!” he said, hopping over the counter to reach them both. “How are we today?” Claudine gave him a big gummy grin in response, and squirmed even more. “Ooh, feeling wiggly are we? Better not wiggle too much, you wiggly worm!” He reached out and tickled her tummy amongst further squealing.

“Ugh, excuse me while I gag.”

“Shut up, Marlow.” To Marco’s surprise, he heard a small bout of laughter from Jean’s chest. When he straightened up to catch his eye, he saw that the dark shadows under his eyes were faded a little. Jean looked much better; he looked like he’d actually had a few hours’ sleep for the past few days. It was a rare occurrence, but it was an opportunity Jean had to grab with both hands. He was wearing his glasses again, the thick frames making his eyes look even sharper, and he kept pushing them up his nose every now and again. Glasses suited him. Marco also noticed the way Jean was chewing on his lip, his fond smile focused on Claudine for the moment. “Hey, Jean,” he said, incapable of removing all the warmth from his voice. He was sure Jean was used to it by now.

Sure enough, he saw Jean’s cheeks flush a little as his eyes flicked up; the little blooms of colour sprang to life like they were waiting for their cue, and Marco found himself fighting his own blush to match. “H-hey,” Jean managed to get out, unthreading his scarf from his throat. Claudine tried to catch it as it fell into her reach. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m here now, but I… I wanted to push myself.”

Marco’s brows slanted downwards. Only now did he understand that the slight shivers wracking Jean’s body were nothing to do with the cold. “Jean, you don’t have to force yourself to do anything if you don’t want to,” he said gently. “I would have understood. I would have waited.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t want you to wait.” Jean’s mouth snapped shut after his outburst, the pink outline of his lips almost disappearing with how thinly he was stretching them. “A-anyway,” he gabbled, giving Marco a gentle shove, “I wasn’t getting anywhere with painting in the house, s-so I had nothing better to do.”

“Yeah, right,” Marlow snorted from behind his desk. Apparently, his being in a good mood didn’t mean he was going to stop tormenting Jean.

Jean shot him a foul look. “No one asked you, shithead!”

“Ooh, I’m quaking in my boots.” Marlow smirked. “C’mon Jean, you know you’re practically part of the furniture now. Make yourself at home.”

Marco stared at Marlow in silent wonder. _Huh. Maybe his good mood **did** impact others. _Jean just grunted and wandered towards the comfiest looking chair. Claudine started to wriggle again, a noise of protest bursting out of her, and Jean stopped to glare down at her. “What’s your problem, Princess?” Claudine reached out a pudgy arm, hand desperately trying to grasp at the air in front of her, and Jean raised a brow. “You wanna go see Marco?” Claudine made a loud ‘NGH’ noise, which made Marco burst out laughing.

“Someone sounds like a grumpy Miss this afternoon,” he said, looking to Jean to check it was okay before freeing Claudine from the carrier with a smile. “Needy little thing, aren’t you?”

“Comes in the job description of being a baby, I guess,” Jean said, watching as Claudine patted Marco’s cheeks with a small grumble. “Must be needy as fuck, and shit and piss on command.”

“She does that?” Marco asked, curling her up against his chest.

“You have no idea.”

“Why don’t you just give her a litter tray and be done with it?” Marlow called out.

“Never have children, they sense stupidity.” Jean took off the remaining straps binding the carrier to him and put it to one side, sinking into the chair with a groan of relief. “She likes Marco though, so maybe she’ll hold her fire.”

Marco chuckled. “Aw, well I like her too.” He focused back on Claudine, who was making little snuffly noises as she tried to find the comfiest way to lie on him. “You hear that? You’re a cute little thing! Precious little thing!” Claudine smiled at the attention, and Marco felt his entire insides smile with her. “That’s right!”

Claudine’s strength had grown more than Marco had anticipated, which meant that she could sit up for a little while without any support. As a result, Marco let her sit on the counter whilst he did some stock-taking. Claudine liked this little bout of freedom, but also wanted more attention than she was getting from any of the adults in the room. Marco was halfway through a record about a particular record player they’d managed to sell when a small hand reached for his pen and dragged a thick blue line across the page. “Claudine!” Marco cried, looking up to see the baby smiling innocently from where she sat. “Are you trying to help, young lady?” She burbled at him and swiped for the pen again. Marco set it down out of reach and picked her up, tapping her on the nose and tutting as she giggled, and let her sit on his lap for a little while as he noted down a few more things.

However, trying to take notes was hard when he had a very squirmy baby in his arms. Eventually, he gave in and just took to entertaining her, tickling her tummy and letting her grip his fingers in her palm and controlling them as she pleased. And all the while, he looked over at Jean and saw that he had out his small, battered book and was scribbling into it without pausing for breath. He couldn’t keep his eyes off it. It was the same little book Marco had seen Jean sketching in when they were at Pixis’ Moustache, but this wasn’t an idle sketch to keep his nerves centred. Jean was in full artist mode, the slight frown on his face nothing but pure concentration as he worked, and there was nothing rushed about this. These sketches were bound to be precise, whatever he was thinking of.

The shop began to wind down, with a few people coming in during the last hour but not many. All of them stopped to coo and fuss over Claudine, who lapped up the attention with a glee that certainly didn’t come from her father. Jean stayed out of sight and silent, hidden next to the bookcases and the only noise a scratching from his pencil. None of the customers noticed him, sitting in the corner like a spectacled ghost that wanted to stay out of harm’s way, and Marco felt ice cubes hit his stomach every time Jean flinched if someone got too close. Once the day was over, though, and Marlow finally turned the sign on the door, all the tension seemed to roll off of Jean’s back as he realised he was safe. Marlow talked over his plans for the night in a dull monotone, mentioning that his TV was actually working for once in its miserable life so he might be able to catch something close to a good TV program. Marco noticed Jean grin at that, but his gaze remained diverted onto his sketchbook. “What are you doing?” Marlow asked, walking over with a hand on his hip. “Making notes on how to socialise?”

“Oh, haha.” Jean hesitated for a moment, then showed Marlow the page he’d been working on. That was a big move, especially for Jean, and Marco felt more warmth steal through him as he wrestled Claudine onto his hip. He couldn’t keep his pride for Jean so badly hidden for long, he knew, but it was nice not to rein it back from time to time.

He pretended that he was too busy to watch the way Marlow’s eyes opened just that little bit more as he stared at the sketchbook. “Holy shit, man,” he breathed, “Those are fucking awesome! Does my hair really look like that from the back?” Marco lifted up his head, biting back the laugh that wanted to worm its way to the surface. “It looks better than I thought, wow… you’re pretty good.”

Jean gave a shy shrug, scratching the back of his neck with his pencil. “W-well they’re only warm-up sketches. I don’t take that long with ‘em. Five minutes tops.”

“You do these in _five minutes_?” Marlow asked. If his eyes weren’t wide before, they certainly were now. Marlow had perfected the heavily lidded, unimpressed look since the age of fourteen, Marco had been told, and seeing him so utterly floored was priceless.

“They’re just scraps!” Jean defended.

“ _Scraps?!”_ Marlow took the book from Jean’s outstretched hand and barked, “Marco, you seen these?”

He jolted at his name. Had Jean noticed he’d been watching? He hoped not. “I’ve seen him paint,” he replied. “I haven’t seen his sketchbook, though. I wanted to wait until I was asked.”

Jean blinked owlishly at him, but Marco just smiled back. Jean flushed and looked away, muttering something under his breath about ‘not having to ask’ as he stowed his glasses away in his pocket. That didn’t deter Marlow from his praise. The longer he admired Jean’s work, the more solid Jean’s weak smile became. It was like watching a winter plant unfurl its withered leaves and expose itself to the sunlight, and that warmth was spreading across Jean’s cheeks and unknotting the arms against his chest. Even when Marlow flicked through more pages, Jean let him. Every word of praise was making him an inch taller, verifying his work just that little bit more, validating his skill…

Then Marlow turned another page, and his mouth quirked up. “Well, well, well, what have we here…”

Jean’s smile dropped. “What?” He arms started to twitch, ready to be folded at a moment’s notice.

“You draw Marco a _lot_.”

The colour in Jean’s face staged a mutiny over to Marco’s as there was a frantic attempt to snatch the book back. “Give it back!” Jean snapped, his anger giving way to panic as Marlow continued to flick through the pages.

“Page 4, Marco. Page 5, Marco. Page 6, more Marco. Marco Marco Marco.” He grinned. “They’re still really good, Jean. Just sweet that you think Marco’s your Mona Lisa.”

Marco stayed where he was, blushing like a beacon as Claudine jiggled around on his lap crying for attention as Jean lunged for the book and almost fell into a display of teapots.

“I SAID GIVE IT BACK,” Jean shouted, his hands shaking as he swiped for the sketchbook. Marlow kept it out of his grasp, turning the pages quicker now, and Jean’s hands slowly clenched into fists. He was full of so many emotions they seemed to all skip across his face at once, one making way for the other and spinning around on a merry-go-round of panic and anger and regret. Too much noise. Too much fear. Too much _everything._ Jean wasn’t going to be able to cope for much longer. He was going to bolt out of the shop and not look back. Marco’s stomach churned at the thought- he was doing so well, after all. He was bound to beat himself up about it afterwards, even if it was Marlow’s doing.

The two of them were dancing round and round the shop, ducking and diving and swearing as Jean tried to get his book back and Marlow gleefully kept it out of reach. It wasn’t funny. Instead, a surge of sympathy for Jean rose up in Marco’s throat, bubbling into anger at the surface. He looked so desperate and sad and _scared_. Memories of secondary school came flashing back to Marco’s mind, and the sympathy punched him in the gut as well as the throat. Whatever the age, bullying was bullying. Just before Jean decided to put his head down and charge Marlow, he shot up out of his chair with a scowl directed straight at Marlow. The sympathy-anger exploded out of him in one sharp command.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” he roared, slamming his free hand down on the table.

Both men froze in place like they’d heard a gunshot. “Marlow, give Jean the sketchbook back,” Marco ordered.

Marlow dropped Jean’s sketchbook into his waiting hands obediently.

Marco shifted Claudine onto his hip, where she had gone uncharacteristically quiet, and let out a short huff. “Marlow, please. I know you didn’t mean it, but knock it off. You don’t take someone’s personal belongings like that if they don’t want you to.”

Marlow’s mouth dropped open. “H-hey, I was just saying there was a lot of you-”

“It’s fine.” Jean’s words made both sets of eyes snap to him. He was cradling his sketchbook close to his chest with a sort of tenderness he usually reserved for Claudine, but he was looking at them both with large, almost child-like eyes. He looked the epitome of the bullied child, and it made Marco move from behind the desk and place a hand on his shoulder. Jean didn’t twitch the way he used to. Instead, his eyes just moved to Marco alone, and he gave a tiny sigh. “I- I guess I overreacted a bit.” His posture seemed to think the exact opposite, but Marco didn’t press him.

Marlow glanced at Marco, winced, then let out a sigh. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to snatch it. Just got excited. You’re really talented.” He paused, brightening up a fraction. “Actually, if you have any paintings lying around that you did as practice or some shit, we could stick ‘em up here and sell ‘em for you if you like. Can’t guarantee they’d sell, mind, not many people come here, but…”

It was enough. Jean raised a sceptical brow. “Don’t fucking joke about shit like that, asshole.”

“No joke.” Marlow’s smile was gone, his face the picture of seriousness. “If you got any, send ‘em our way. We’ll sell ‘em for you and give you the money back. You practically work here anyway right now- might as well make some money whilst you’re sat here doodling away.” He patted the battered leather under Jean’s fingertips. “S’the least I could do.”

Jean didn’t look convinced, but when Marlow moved away to set some of the display items back on respective shelves, a flicker of hope crossed his face that Marco couldn’t help catching. That hope remained even as Marco grabbed for his jacket and slung it on, picking his keys off the hook hanging above his workspace and vaulting the desk to get back to Jean and Claudine. Jean had the carrier back on, Claudine blinking at the world outside, and Marco smiled at the way the sketchbook was tucked behind Claudine’s back. “For posture,” Jean grunted, and Marco nodded.

_Right._

_Posture._

"You ready to go?" he asked.

"No," Jean deadpanned, "I'd much rather stay here in this dusty old shop after dark. Bet you have some ghosts in here."

"Oi, we get this place exorcised at least once a year," Marlow called out from behind the desk.

Marco made a pained face. "I'd love to say we're joking, but..."

"Go on, you two, get going. I have a life to go waste." Marlow waved them off dismissively, checking one final thing on the dinosaur of a computer before giving it a hefty kick to get the shut down screen up.

Just as they reached the door, however, Jean turned back. Marco frowned, ready to question him, but then Jean blurted out, "I have some. Paintings, I mean."

Marco looked between Jean and Marlow, waiting for the reaction. Marlow's brows rose as he straightened up, giving Jean a look that was close to warmth as he wrapped an old scarf around his neck. "Alright then, Undercut," he said. "Bring 'em here and we'll see what we can do."

Jean flushed at that, and pulled the door open. Marco almost tripped out the door with the speed of the other boy's exit.

Once they were out in the open, Marco saw something was wrong. Jean seemed to seize up at the amount of people almost on impact of the outdoor air reaching his skin.

_Of course. He was having a bad day._

Everyone had come out from work, and the city was doing far more than breathing; it was wheezing, belching out the grey suits from every tired looking office block around. They passed them by like phantoms, no one taking any notice of each other and thinking only of the way home and the evening they were soon to have to themselves. It was a little choking. Marco could see why Jean got so nervous. "Hey," he murmured, brushing up close to him. "How you doing?"

Jean's jaw clenched. He looked gaunt in the sunlight, like he was going to burst into smoke if Marco got too close. "I... I don't..." He gritted his teeth. "I... fuck... I'm not sure..."

Marco frowned. "Lot of people, huh?"

Jean gave a curt nod. "Y-yeah. Lot of people." His breaths were coming short, the cord-like tendons in his neck snapping from side to side as he tried to avoid the gaze of anyone who came towards them. He looked like a trapped rat, alone and scared with everything but the dark shadows falling away and rendering him helpless.

Marco's hand was gripping Jean's before he even had the chance to draw breath.

"It's okay," he said, trying to keep his voice even as he squeezed gently. "I'm here. You're not on your own. I'm here." He recited those two sentences over and over again as they started to walk, making sure to lead Jean on the sparser populated pavements and crossing if it looked like there was a big crowd coming up. Marco knew that usually you had to stay where you were when you were panicking like Jean was to keep yourself grounded, but he was following his instinct. His instinct was telling him to move.

"I need a cigarette," Jean squeaked eventually.

"No you don't," Marco urged as they turned a corner. "You're fine. Every time you feel uncomfortable, you squeeze my hand, alright? And I'll squeeze right back, and you'll know I'm here. Can you do that?" He didn't know how his words were coming so cleanly; he was holding Jean's clammy hand in his own, smoothing his thumb over any digit it could reach, and his chest felt like it was going to burst. He felt Jean's grip tighten on his hand almost immediately, and he smiled. "That's it. You're doing fine."

"T-this is pathetic," Jean wheezed.

"Hey, if you have enough air in your lungs to insult yourself you better have enough breath to talk to me about your day," Marco scolded as they crossed the road again. He ignored the fact that the lights weren't green. "You said you were painting this morning. Was it the bird picture you were doing for that restaurant?"

Jean took a moment to respond. When he did, it felt strained. "Y-yeah," he said, "Yeah it... it was."

"What was wrong with it?"

"The b-beaks weren't coming out right. A-and Claudine's been a bit fussy lately. T-think she's gonna start teething soon." Jean's eyes had stopped darting everywhere. In fact, the tension in his body seemed to be slipping away, bit by bit. The faceless people around them were clearly starting to blend into the background.

"That's gonna be tough," Marco agreed, trying not to give in to the cheer that was rising within him. It was working. Whatever the hell he'd decided to do, it was working. "I can try to figure it out with you, though. If you like."

"Th-that'd be appreciated, yeah. Think she's gonna be a nightmare."

"Will she be a sprog and not a princess?"

"Most definitely." Jean squeezed his hand again, and he returned it as they walked past Pixis's Moustache.

By now, Jean was calming down; the episode had passed, and his breath wasn't quite so shaky. Marco let out a sigh of relief. It worked. It really worked. Thank god. He finally glanced down at Jean, and saw that he was being stared at with unbridled shock. "What?"

Jean squeezed their hands together again, his silent thank you, and offered him a small smile as his reward. "Nothing," he said.

Marco offered him a beam in return. “You’re okay?”

Jean hesitated, then nodded. “I’m okay.”

Marco felt a little ashamed at how much everything seemed to relax within him; it was as though he had been cresting the waves with Jean, doing nothing but guiding him away from the rougher waters. “Good,” he replied, giving Jean a gentle nudge. He grinned at the weak nudge he got back.

“I’m sorry,” was Jean’s next statement as they continued on. He was staring down at Claudine, half-asleep in the carrier, ears flushing red as he spoke, and it was all Marco could do to stop himself from reeling him in closer. “I don’t-”

“You can’t control them.” Marco shrugged. “I wouldn’t ask you to apologise for them.”

They walked in silence for a little while, and Marco couldn’t ignore the way Jean kept holding his hand. It was like it was a lifeline, like Marco was his anchor to the real world outside his head. And not once did he try to break their connection. Marco was scared to tighten his grip unless Jean remembered and let their fingers slip away, but it was there, a tiny glimmer of heat that made him tuck his chin into the collar of his jumper and smile shyly at the ground. Why was he behaving like such a lovestruck teenager? He was a grown up now. _Get a grip, Marco, come on. Get a fucking grip._

When they turned down a small side street, Marco stopped dead. His eyes zeroed in on a flurry of movement to the right, in a place that was out of sight from anyone just passing by. His eyes narrowed. “What is it?” Jean urged, squinting down the track of street himself.

“Something’s going on down there,” Marco said. His kept his voice low, his breathing steady. “Keep quiet a sec.”

Jean obeyed. Marco strained to hear a muffled sob, a harsh word, anything. And then he heard it. A frenzied whispering, a ruffling of material, a choked whimper. _“You shouldn’t be in this part of town, girlie.”_

His blood ran cold. “Jean, someone’s down there.”

Jean shook his head furiously, taking a step back. “Marco, don’t you fucking dare,” he said. When Marco looked back at him, he shook his head again like a stubborn child, backing away slowly. “Don’t get involved.”

Marco glanced back to the sidestreet. He looked to Jean. “They sound like they’re in trouble.”

“Then call the police.” Jean’s voice was hushed, desperate, and he took another step back. He tugged on their connected hands. “Come on.”

Marco bit his lip. He wasn’t sure he could. Everything in him was screaming to go down there, to see what was going on, to check if everything was alright. But he had Jean on one end calling him back, and Claudine starting to wake up because they’d stopped. His pulse began to race. “J-Jean, the police won’t do anything.”

“Marco, _please don’t._ ” Jean’s voice almost broke halfway through the demand. His eyes were wide, every limb of his rigid yet poised to run at the slightest moment. He looked _terrified._ For a moment, every inch of Marco’s adrenaline shrank back. He swallowed painfully as he added, “C-can we just go home?”

_Home._ If anything could stick a knife into Marco’s ribs and twist it, it was the way Jean had said the word like it was something that belonged to the both of them. Like it was something they had together.

Marco wanted to kiss him.

He gritted his teeth and turned back to the sounds (“ _Now what you got there, girlie? Somethin’ for me?”_ ) before shutting his eyes and turning back to Jean. “C-call the police, alright?” he said. He opened his eyes to see Jean shaking his head in disbelief. His heart sank. “Just… do that for me? I won’t take long. I swear. I’ll just scare the guy off.”

“Marco, please…”

“Jean, it’ll be okay.” Marco stepped a little closer, the gap between them only a hair’s breadth. He stroked Jean’s thumb with his own, the familiar fizz kicking in again, and he took in the fear and confusion written all over Jean’s face. “And no matter what happens, keep Claudine safe and stay down.”

And then he did something that was very stupid.

More stupid than walking straight up to a criminal and tapping them on the shoulder (though Marco had done that before).

More stupid even than goading the police into chasing you to a scene of a crime because they wouldn’t do it on their own time (Marco had done that too).

No. Far worse.

He quashed down all rational thought, leaned in, and brushed his lips against Jean’s cheek.

Before he could regret it, he let Jean’s hand go.  He couldn’t even look at Jean; he simply walked down the sidestreet without looking back, his lips stinging like an afterburn. _Couldn’t think about it now. Had to focus. Someone needs help._ His pace quickened as the demands for the victim to hand over their belongings grew louder and more excited. _This is what you’re here for. Don’t think about Jean. Focus._ By the time he turned the corner, his nerves were gone.

The mugger had his back to Marco, bearing down upon the girl he’d managed to push into a corner. She was fumbling through her bag, her hands shaking as he demanded her purse, and Marco’s lip curled. The girl was barely older than sixteen. What would she have that the mugger would possibly want? She wouldn’t have much money, that was for sure. Her eyes flicked up- and caught his own. They widened a fraction, but he shook his head. _Don’t give me away. Not yet. Wait._ She seemed to understand, for she went back to rummaging through her bag.

“That’s it,” the mugger drawled. “There’s a good little girlie, hand it over and I’ll let you go on your merry little way.”  He was older, probably one of the homeless that dotted the alleyways that made up the arteries of Trost’s innermost network if his clothing was anything to go by, and he reeked of stale alcohol and cigarettes. Marco held his breath. If he was homeless, he was probably weak; starvation did that to a man. All they had were their intimidation tactics. Maybe all he’d have to do was call out and he’d bolt. But still, Marco held back. He took a step closer, as quiet as he could get and still looking at the girl. The mugger was getting impatient. “Hurry _up_ now little girlie!” he snarled, brandishing something at her as she rifled. “Don’t wanna get me annoyed now do we?”

Marco snapped. He brought his foot up and lashed out, kicking the man in the back of the knee. The knee buckled. With a surprised yelp, the man went down, clawing for purchase on the concrete to right himself. The girl let out a shriek and leapt away, pushing her bag close to her chest. She dived out of the way in time; Marco gave him another kick to make sure he was winded and almost got the broken end of a glass bottle thrust into his leg. “He smashed it over there!” the girl cried as Marco dodged another swipe in his direction.

“Stay there!” Marco shouted. “Don’t move!”

She twitched, like she wanted to take off, but did as he asked. She hung back, bottom lip quivering as she made herself look as small as possible.

The other thing about men like this was that they were acting out of pure desperation. Some had their veins screaming out for a toxin to fill them, overriding all common sense and logic, and others were led by their empty stomachs. Marco had to be careful. “It’s not nice to threaten young ladies,” he said, dodging another badly-timed swipe. “Don’t you have any manners?”

“F-Fuck you!”

“Clearly not.” Marco rolled his eyes and backed off a little, watching the way the man tried to stagger to his feet. “Look, mate, we’re all broke. Just clear off, alright? Make it easier for all of us.”

The man’s eyes bulged like lamp lights. It didn’t look like he’d washed in a while, and his clothes were all a little worse for wear. His face was marked with old scars and empty craters where acne had clearly ravaged him in a younger time. He spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the ground between them. “W-who the fuck are you?!” he demanded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Marco shrugged. “I’m nobody. Just move on. The police are on the way.”

“N-nobody, huh?” Spittle was still hanging from the man’s face from the spitting, and the globe-like eyes narrowed. He resembled a bad tempered bulldog as he finally got to his feet properly, snarling and snapping. “Well then. Ain’t no one gonna give a shit if you never leave this street, then, are they?”

Marco barely even blanched. “Is that supposed to scare me off?” he asked.

“I’ll do it, boy! Don’t think I won’t!”

Marco thought he might. His eyes flicked between the man, the girl, the mouth of the sidestreet leading into the main pathway. He was stood between the man’s escape and his capture. A desperate man didn’t like being backed into a corner. So, when the man lurched out of the shadows and made to thrust the broken bottle into Marco’s stomach, he was ready for him.

He darted out of the way and brought his elbow down hard into the centre of the man’s back, watching with satisfaction as he crumpled like paper. He vaguely recalled something stinging, but didn’t pay too much attention to it. The man let out a hoarse cry as he hit the ground, and the hand wielding the broken bottle was flung out to the side. Marco didn’t hesitate in bringing his foot down onto the man’s wrist. Hard. The man howled, but relinquished the bottle.

“MARCO!” he heard Jean call out from the mouth of the street. For a moment, his bravado vanished. For a moment, he realised what he was doing, and how dangerous it was. For a moment, he felt as scared as Jean sounded.

But then he saw the blue lights. He heard the sirens. Heard the rush of thick boots on the pavement. He looked down at the man, snivelling in the dirt, and gave him an extra kick to the ribs for good measure. “If you know what’s good for you,” he hissed, “I’d stay down.”

He stepped away. His breath came back. Everything was fine. The police were here, and the man would at least get a night in the cells. He looked to the girl, and found her staring at him with a mixture of shock and admiration on her face. “Come on,” he said, reaching out a hand, “we’ll get you home.”

She nodded, grabbing his hand on impulse, and Marco could feel the tremors like the wings of a bird. He gave her a small smile, and led her past the police that thundered down the length of street and out into the open. A few curious people had gathered, no doubt to see whether or not another murder case had opened up that they could gossip over, but most began to drift away. Marco didn’t care about that. The only person he cared about was stood where he’d left him, pale as a ghost and shivering as the cold began to take hold. Marco bit his lip.

He led the girl over, eyes only for Jean and how scared he looked, and when they were finally close enough to talk he just managed to mumble out the word, “Jean,” like it was a greeting. Jean stayed still, expression unreadable. Marco’s smile faltered. “J-Jean?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, his eyes flew to the girl. “What’s your name?” he asked.

The girl blinked. “H-Hannah.”

“Hannah.” Jean unbuckled a strap from his carrier and lifted Claudine out with great care. “Could you hold my baby for a second?”

Hannah stared at him as though he was mad, but the intensity of his stare made her reach out her hands. “S-sure.”

Jean settled Claudine in her arms, making sure to get her head in the right position as she dosed, and nodded. “Thank you, Hannah.”

Marco frowned, and stepped forward. “Jean, what are you do-”

He soon got his answer. Jean turned around, and punched him square in the face.

Pain bloomed straight from Marco’s jaw, and the blow sent him reeling backwards with a hoarse, “ _Fuck_!” His hand flew to his pulsing jaw, trying to cajole it into hurting a little less, but it did no good. It felt even worse with Jean glaring up at him. He wasn’t just glaring; he looked _furious._ Marco felt a flash of panic as he straightened up. “Jean, wha-”

“I hope that _fucking_ bruises, asshole!” Jean all but screeched at him, causing the few that had stuck around to divert the attention to them. He had both fists clenched at his sides and he looked willing to beat Marco into a pulp if he dared interrupt. “What the _fuck_ did you think you were doing?! What if you’d got fucking hurt, huh? Ever think about that, you selfish prick?!”

Marco stared at him, wide-eyed, as Jean flew into a mini whirlwind of a rage, ranting about how Marco was ‘so stupid’ for doing it and ‘such an asshole’ and ‘fuck you Bodt and all you stand for’. Marco was pretty sure even some of the police had stopped to watch; everyone stopped and stared at this young father with a baby carrier still hanging off his body shouting abuse at the taller man who was trying very carefully to calm him down. Marco had his hands out and a weak smile on his face as he tried to will Jean into being quiet, but it didn’t seem like Jean was done yet. “J-Jean, please don’t be angry,” he tried. It didn’t work.

“And you know what’s worse?!” Jean snapped, striding up so close that there was barely any space left between them. Marco’s breath hitched as their noses almost bumped together. “When I heard that asshole cry out I thought it was _you_ , and it fucking scared me, alright?!” And with that, Jean grabbed Marco by the waist and crashed their bodies together, winding his arms around him in a death grip as he muttered curses and damnations into the lapels of his jacket. “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” he mumbled into the leather. “Don’t you ever, _ever_ do that to me again, you fucker.”

Marco froze, arms thrown out to the side. Now he understood. He was an idiot. Such an idiot. To Jean, Marco had sounded like he was going in without thinking. To Jean, it felt like final words from a film he’d never watched. He knew that Marco helped people, but he didn’t know he would barge headfirst into something like that. How was he to know that Marco was used to them- that he did it so often he knew the warning signs? No. All Jean had seen was Marco getting swallowed up by the gloom of the sidestreet without any notion that he’d stroll back out again. No wonder he was angry. Marco would have been, if he’d been in Jean’s position. And for what? A terrified teenage girl and another bum off the streets. Hardly worth the risk.

Marco sighed. Maybe Jean was right. Maybe he _was_ selfish.

The teenager was stood holding Claudine with her mouth slightly open, and he was pretty sure the other people surrounding them were doing the same. He tried a weak smile and a shrug in her direction. She blinked. _Maybe not._ He looked back to Jean, and bit his lip. He wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch Jean like he wanted; he wanted to curl him into his chest and squeeze him just a little to make him know he was wanted. That he was _sorry._ When he didn’t move, all Jean did was tighten his grip. “I told you not to go,” Jean mumbled into his jacket. “You didn’t fucking listen, do you ever fucking listen?”

“Jean,” Marco breathed out. His chest clenched at the way Jean twitched. Finally, he brought his arms around him, wrapping Jean into a far more tender hug as he held him close enough to feel the trembles. “Oh Jean, I’m sorry,” he said, whispering the word against Jean’s ear. “I’m sorry.” He nearly choked when Jean squeezed him again. Something might even have stung. Still, he held him, and mumbled tiny ‘sorry’s into the minimal air between them as Jean’s trembling slowed. He even dared to play with a few stray strands of ash blonde, inhaling the smell of formula milk, oil paint and sleepless nights on Jean’s skin. He was sorry. _He was so sorry._

Eventually, Jean pulled away, swiping at his eyes as he turned back to the girl holding Claudine. It might have only been seconds, but for Marco it spanned years. His professional nurse façade was back as he talked to her, asking if she’d sustained any injury and where she lived, and Marco watched him with a wretched expression, hands thrust in his pockets to ward off the frost that was beginning to bite at his fingertips.

“He don’t mean nothing by it, son.”

He spun around to see a very tiny old lady beaming up at him. With her grey fur ruff and a pleased expression, she looked like a well-mannered chinchilla as she shuffled closer, patting Marco on the side of his arm as she went. “You in the dog house for sure, but he just worried. Nothin’ to worry about.”

Marco chuckled at her friendliness. Thinking back to Mrs. Presnutt, this was a welcome relief. “I know. He worries about everything.”

“That means he care,” she nodded. “He care about other people like you, but in different way. You see.”

Marco thought about it. “I think you’re right, yeah.”

The old lady smiled, and poked him in the side. “You good person, son, but everyone can be hero. Just in other ways.”

Marco nodded his agreement, and then Jean was walking over. Claudine was strapped back in, looking rather grumpy at being woken up, and Jean looked a little humbled. “Hannah knows where she’s going. She phoned her mam, she’s picking her up.” He huffed. “We should get going. Thought you said you had to take Eren to support group tonight.”

Marco blinked. “Oh yeah, I… I better get back.” He turned back to the old lady, and smiled. “We have to be going now. It was nice to meet you.”

She bobbed her head eagerly. “Yes, you too.” She then looked to Jean. “Your boyfriend is sorry. Don’t be too mean to him.”

Both Marco and Jean flushed bright red. Before Marco could stumble over his words correcting her, Jean got there first. “I w-won’t, b-but we’re not-”

She held up a wrinkled hand and shook her head, smiling with a strange kind of knowledge, before she turned away and carried on up the street. They gawped after her. “W-who the fuck was she?!” Jean managed to splutter.

Marco shrugged. “Someone who thinks you should treat me better, apparently.”

Jean gave him a filthy look. “I meant it. I hope it bruises.”

“Ouch.”

They got a little further down the road before Jean stopped and muttered a little savagely, “I panicked. I didn’t mean to punch you. Even if you fucking deserved it.”

Marco smiled and reached out to ruffle Jean’s hair. “Knew you didn’t mean it.”

“Fuck you I meant it!”

Marco was sure his laughter almost made Jean hit him again. They got a few more feet before Jean noticed the drops of crimson seeping through Marco’s pale shirt.

“You’re fucking bleeding!”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are, oh my _god_.”

Marco got another smack on the arm for that. But the memory of Jean clinging to him, worrying about him, not _mentioning_ the kiss on the cheek, dulled the pain a little.

Just a little.

Jean dragging him back to his house and demanding he poured something that felt like acid onto his skin, however, hurt a _hell_ of a lot.

_Oh well,_ Marco thought as Jean fussed over him, _I guess I really did deserve this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Marco has a scratch. Won't stop him being a baby about it, but it's nothing to worry about! Jean is gonna kick his ass...


	13. Broken clocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE TIME :D Happy weekend!   
> Man this is a beast, my bad guys :'D the boys ran away with me, and this is what I get for my trouble! I did plow out a lot of this chapter in the space of a few days, but it should read okay- AO3 has a wonderful habit of eating words every now and again, but I double checked everything so *fingers crossed* 
> 
> So this chapter we have the infamous SCENE I think four people have wanted for a very long time, some thoughts back to the past and musings on the future. A lot of Eren being a nerd too, which is always a good thing :D Also, this chapter really should be called 'The One With The Awful Clothes/Music' but beh
> 
> As always, thank you so much for everyone's support and love for this fic, it makes me SUPER SUPER happy you have no idea :D My ask box is open on my tumblr so feel free to spam me with anything there as well as in the comments!   
> Tumblr: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> And...eyyyup enjoy! ;D

It rained the next week.

It rained hard; so hard that Marco didn’t dare risk going outside. Instead, he rushed home every night from the shop, kicked Bertha into a higher gear and cursed every raindrop that fell on his exposed skin. When it finally came to his days off, all he could do was stand against the old, dusted windows of his apartment and watch the progress of the droplets down their surface. They were calming to watch, in a way. They collected there like jewels, glimmering in the lights of the city and the apartment far too precious for them. As Marco gazed at them one morning they drew together like fat diamond tadpoles, wriggling together, combining to form one gem-like drop that, with its weight, rolled down the panes so fast it broke apart and shattered again. Marco kept his bare shoulder pressed up against the glass, the cold grounding him and reminding his cabin fevered state that it was for the best that he stayed inside. He had to. He didn’t want to risk another bout of fever, after all- he didn’t know how much damage the last one had done. And, as he traced the slowly healing cut on his side, he didn’t want to risk running into another less than friendly stranger either.

He raked a hand through his hair, thumb skimming across the top of the sunflower on his neck as he continued to watch the rain. Eren was still asleep, having passed out in Marco’s bed the night before snoring like a rhino. According to him, he’d been at the library ‘all day’ until a concerned librarian approached him under a mountain of books and suggested he get a library card to take some books home. Marco honestly couldn’t imagine Eren being the bookish type- he had sneered at _The Bell Jar,_ after all- but Eren was adamant that was where he’d been. Marco thought it best to humour him. He knew it wouldn’t be long before Eren snuck up behind him and asked why he was being so melancholy and poetic, but for now he made the most of the peace and quiet.

Sasha barging into the apartment with a wheezing Connie in tow, therefore, was something he hadn’t expected.

“Chuck ‘em down there Connie!” Sasha ordered her poor slave, burdened with bags from the shop Marco had slid his measly wage packet over for. Before Connie had the chance to complain, she had swept over to Marco like a whirlwind. “What’s the matter, big man? You’re looking very brooding and lovelorn today, if I do say so myself.”

Marco gave her a hoarse chuckle and pushed himself off the pane. “I’m fine, Sash’. Just not been out of the house for a while, that’s all.”

Sasha snorted through her nose. Before Marco could jerk away, she’d wrapped her arms around him and started to sway, her now rather swollen belly poking his intrusively. “A little bit of rain won’t _kill_ you, you know. Didn’t kill me!” she trilled.

“Speak for yourself,” Connie wheezed from behind her.

Marco laughed, and dared to reach a hand down to touch her belly. His grin only increased when he felt a little foot kick back. “Destroyer’s pretty active lately, isn’t he?” he asked.

Sasha giggled. “Yep! Kicks like a bitch if he wants me to eat something!”

“You don’t need an excuse.”

“Shush, Connie.”

Marco looked over at him. “She managed to grab you for an outing, did she?”

He tried not to laugh at the way Connie’s ears suddenly turned very, very pink. “N-nah, I offered,” he said, scuffing his shoes on the floor.

“He did!” Sasha butted in, beaming at the shy smile Connie shot her way. “He said he needed a study break!”

_Study break. Right._

“Oh, oh, I bought something for you, come see!” she said, and then Marco was being dragged over to the kitchen area in a headlock. He was used to it by now; he couldn’t exactly roughhouse with a girl who was a sizeable amount of pregnant and get away with it. It wasn’t worth the struggle. He was pretty sure she’d noticed how quiet he’d been the last couple of days, too, so even though he was going to protest about whatever she’d bought him, he wouldn’t scold her too much. Sasha liked making people happy, and Marco didn’t mind indulging every now and again. He’d been a lot happier the past few months _anyway_ \- what would a little more do to him?

But when he’d been dragged to the table and Sasha had presented her find to him with a gleeful “TADAA” he seriously questioned her sanity.

His eyes widened. “Are…those…?”

“YEP!” She waved the offending material around like a flag, Connie covering his face through his sniggers. Marco wasn’t stupid. He knew that shade of blue anywhere.

“Superman boxers?” he gawped.

“Superman boxer _briefs_ , I know you prefer ‘em!” Sasha grinned, practically throwing them at him with a guffaw.

Marco picked them up and looked them over, unable to contain the laughter that slipped through his lips as he saw that only the back of them was emblazoned with the logo. “Thanks, Sash’. Really. You shouldn’t have,” he tried to deadpan. Sasha’s eagerly smiling face and Connie trying not to burst into wild laughter made it come out more amused than he’d intended. “Where did you even find these?” he asked.

“Never mind that, you didn’t have Superman ones, so I knew they’d make you smile!” Sasha waddled back over and planted a large, sloppy kiss on his cheek (that he immediately rubbed off with a grimace). “Go put them on and show me!”

“SASHA.”

“Well I wanna know if they fit!”

Marco refused. In fact, as he put them into his mishmash drawer of underwear and socks later, he was convinced he wouldn’t wear them until he was sure Sasha was out.

His chance came a little later on, when after waking up from an impromptu nap he found that he had the apartment to himself. He found a note on the kitchen counter that said ‘ _Gone to get some tomato juice for Destroyer with Eren. Yes, drank all the cartons I bought earlier. See you later! :)_ ’ in Sasha’s spiky handwriting, confirming his suspicions, and he let out a sigh. He was totally alone. He could do anything he wanted. He hadn’t had that sort of freedom for a while.

He opted for a shower, but as he stood there and let the measly trickle of water cool his burning body his mind was elsewhere. It was under the bed, just to left and behind the shirt Eren had thrown there, to be precise. He threw his head back under the stream and gasped at the feeling. He needed to open that package soon. It was like Pandora’s Box, sitting there with so much potential heartache inside that it made his chest spasm with panic every time he gave it a thought. Ever since Hyacinth sent it through, the box had taken up residence in the most painful corner of his mind, wedged there without hope of ever being dislodged. Every day he put off finding out what was inside it, the bigger the corner became. By now, it felt like it was filling out the entire left side of his brain.

He growled and scruffed his hair full of watered down shampoo. Despite it all, though, his curiosity wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be; there was a part of him that needed to open that box, just to put his mind at rest. It couldn’t be bad. Not _totally_ , anyway. Hyacinth wouldn’t have given it to him if she thought it would cause unneeded upset.

Marco growled again and ducked his head under the shower head, scrunching his eyes in anticipation of the diluted shampoo that fell in his eyes. _Today_ , he decided, _it had to be today._

He felt his heart speed up at the mere thought.

He padded across the apartment with his towel slung over his shoulders, attempting to catch the lukewarm drops from his hair, and noticed that their colder brothers were still clinging to the window. “Will this rain ever stop?” he grumbled to himself. He heard a meow in reply, and found Batman lounging on his bed, claws extended as he stretched. “Even _you’re_ not outside?” Marco questioned. The cat yawned and looked up at him, the picture of meek innocence. Marco raised a brow. “Fairweather feline, huh? Good, at least I have some company,” he said, reaching out a hand to tickle Batman on the underside of his chin. He got a very guttural, very pleased purr for his trouble. He pulled out the Briefs In Question from his drawer and glanced at the still stretching cat. “What do you think, Batman? You think it’s a super kind of a day?” Batman meowed. “I thought so too.”

_He was going to need all the fake and fanciful courage he could lay his hands on if he was going to look through Thomas’s things._

He had to hand it to Sasha, they fitted really well. Like, _really_ well. The fabric clung to his hips in all the comfortable places, and he grinned despite himself.  “How do I look?” he asked, turning around to present himself to Batman. The tomcat paused, like he was genuinely assessing his owner for signs of sanity, before letting out a yawn. Marco huffed. “Charming.”

He was still pretty warm- his body was having another funny day with temperature where his skin felt thinner than it should with heat- so he sauntered into the living space of his apartment with nothing but the underwear and the last pair of socks he owned without a hole in them. He heard Batman following him, and the questioning mew at his ear as he reached the fridge made him smile. “Fine, if there’s milk left you can have some,” he said, fishing some out and pouring it into the first mug he could reach. Batman butted his head into Marco’s shoulder in a gesture of thanks before folding his paws neatly beneath him and sticking his nose into the mug. Marco rolled his eyes and left his cat to it, grabbing the broom from the corner and sidling towards the speakers. There was one way he could shake the impending doom sitting over his head like a storm cloud. He racked the volume up high, grinning as the first beats of music made them twitch, and moved away to start cleaning. “C’mon, Alanis, work your magic,” he muttered under his breath as he recognised the opening notes to _You Oughta Know_ blaring through the speakers.

He saw Batman’s head shoot up from where he was perched on the kitchen top, and he swore the cat’s eyes narrowed at the inclusion of music. It was a look that was either contentment in cat language, or a ‘don’t you fucking dare’ in human language. Marco was pretty sure it was the latter once he started singing the second verse.

He got the cleaning done surprisingly quickly. As his mood lifted, so too did his energy; within three songs he was taking running jumps and sliding along the floors with the broom dragging behind him like some strange speed buffer. Batman watched critically from his safe zone, tail flicking back and forth as he stared at his owner’s final bout of madness. He yowled and skittered from the kitchen top as Marco spun towards it, belting out a Whitney Houston line at the top of his lungs. “HOW WILL I KNOW IF HE REALLY LOVES MEEE?” he sang, spinning around on the spot before rolling his hips with a conscious chuckle, running a hand through his hair as he nodded along to the drums in the background of the song. He was starting to feel like he had on New Year’s Eve; his body was becoming supple and yielding to his demands and movements, and the flush spreading across his chest was definitely keeping him warm. The come down from the song fading out felt softer, tangible in the air around him, and when the next song kicked in he felt a grin spread across his face.

_Oh god, he hadn’t heard this one in a while._

He couldn’t help the sway his hips took on, the bouncy way they swung from side to side as he tried to carry on cleaning. His heart definitely wasn’t on the cleaning once the chorus kicked in.

“ _I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother…”_

“I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I do not feel ashamed!” Marco finished for the singer, brushing a hand up his chest and letting his fingers snag in his hair again. Now he knew why Eren danced. He felt so _good_ doing it. He even started to curl his hips in tight circles, following the bratty rebellious music’s tone as he mimicked the way he remembered Eren curling his arms around one another above his head. Wow, it _did_ feel good. Eren always called it the snake hips, and Marco could feel why. He bit his lip and stopped singing altogether, content to just roll his hips around and around in the most lewd mock up he could remember from Eren’s old routines, and chuckling through his nose the entire time.

Maybe he hadn’t heard the keys in the lock- the music probably drowned it out- but he was halfway into another hip roll whilst singing, “ _I’m a bitch, I’m a tease, I’m a goddess on my knees,_ ” when the door did in fact open. He didn’t notice until he heard the door shut behind them.

Marco probably wouldn’t have cared if Eren had walked in.

Marco would have been a little embarrassed if it was Sasha.

But when he turned around with a cheesy grin and met the absolutely scarlet face of Jean, his face dropped. Now he knew what a deer felt like. Or a rabbit. Or any other animal that was used to fleeing in the path of certain death.

He wasn’t upright for long. He only had to glance at Jean’s eyes for a split second before his panic mode set in. Unfortunately, his ‘panic mode’ wasn’t that well developed.

With a very unmanly shriek of terror, he dropped out of sight and hit the deck with a very heavy _thunk._ Only a few seconds afterwards did he realise that it was not only a stupid thing to do, pain was now also flooding his system. “Ow, shit!”

“Oh my god, are you okay?!” came the concerned words of Sasha, whilst the ugly cackling was probably Eren. _Of course. That was how Jean would get into your apartment in the first place, dingus._

All Marco could do was squeak in reply, the embarrassment flaring him hotter than any fever and refusing any coherent words entry to his mouth. Batman, deciding the coast was clear, dropped onto the floor and walked past his owner with a disdainful flick of his tail. If a cat should shake its head and sigh in disappointment, Batman would have done it.

“Hey asshole, you were stealing my moves,” he heard Eren splutter out through his laughter. “Snake hips are mine, dude, and you know it.”

Marco groaned against the woodwork. _For fuck’s sake._

“I’ll go get you some clothes,” Sasha said, and Marco heard her rush down the hallway.

“Aw c’mon Sash, it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before,” Eren replied.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Jean announced a little too loudly.

“Gonna go jerk it, Kirschtein?”

“FUCK YOU JAEGER,” was the shrieking reply.

Once Marco was sure Jean had indeed bolted to the bathroom, he rose up on his knees to peek over the top of the kitchen counter. Eren was leant against the opposite side, grinning across at him. As usual, he was clad in something dragged straight out of a 1980s music video; a bright turquoise and pink jumper gave way to the tightest (and shortest) denim shorts Marco had seen in a while. It didn’t help that there was a pink heart emblazoned on one of the back pockets. _Looks like someone hoarded a children’s section charity shop again._ Colourful though Eren was, the warning signs were there. Dark circles had appeared under his eyes from where he’d been skipping out on sleep (his pills seemed to give him that side effect) but Marco couldn’t quite bring himself to care at that moment. Eren’s grin was too bright, too toothy, too _smug._ “How you doin’ there, pop princess?” he asked, dropping his chin onto his folded arms. “Your hips certainly don’t lie.”

Marco gave him as unimpressed a gaze as he could, given the situation and his blush. “I didn’t think anyone was going to come home,” he muttered.

“Well, duh.” Eren smirked. “You know, that underwear fits you _real nice._ ”

Marco glared at him. “Sasha bought ‘em for me,” he sulked.

“They’re wonderful.”

“Can everyone stop checking out my ass?”

“Never. Your butt demands attention. It’s no one’s fault. It transcends levels of perfection.” Eren’s grin grew even more when he added, “And of course, you got freckles on that marvellous derriere. Can’t get cuter than that.”

Marco felt his blush get even darker as he grabbed the salt shaker and threw it at Eren from across the table. “Shut the hell up!” he hissed. “You should stop teasing Jean. Armin would be pissed.”

“Ah, Armin says I can do it within reason. So long as I don’t mention the baby. Or his ex. Or his fear of the outdoors. Doesn’t leave me with much, but I can work on a budget.” Eren wiggled his eyebrows. “Y’see, he doesn’t want to change the beast, Marco: he just wants to _tame_ it a little.”

“Of course.” Marco then noticed that Eren was resting on a library book. He squinted to read the faded gold title on its spine, half hidden by Eren’s eye-watering jumper. “Eren, why are you reading a book called _Gender and Sexuality: definition and realism_?” he asked.

Eren straightened up at that, his face the picture of innocence as he looked down at the coffee-stained old book. “Oh, this thing?” he said, the colour in his cheeks betraying his nonchalance as he picked it up by the spine.

“Yes, that thing.” Marco reached up to fold his arms on the table top; it was a bit of a stretch, but doable. “What’s going on, Eren? You’ve been _reading_ , and not bragging about the date you went on with Armin-”

“It wasn’t a date!” Eren snapped.

“-so something’s up. Wanna tell me?”

It was very clear that Eren wasn’t all that keen on telling Marco anything. But Marco drew his brows together and gave the tiniest little pout imaginable until Eren crumbled. “Damnit, fine!” Eren conceded with a scowl, “It’s… it’s research, alright?!”

Marco blinked. “Research for what?”

Eren made an agonised noise and rubbed the back of his neck, scooting the book further along the table for Marco to reach. “W-well, when Armin and I went for that drink, we started talking about… personal things…”

“If you started talking about your dick in public again there is no way in hell any kind of book can help you.”

“Wha-no!” Eren’s scowl twisted as he tried to get his words out. “W-we were talking about…like… relationships and stuff. I told him about Reiner.”

Marco exhaled slowly. “Wow.”

“Yeah. But that’s… that’s not it.” Eren huffed out through his nose. “He told me he finds it kind of hard to date, and when I asked why he told me he was demisexual.”

Marco’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair for a moment. “Oh.” He blinked. “Well, that makes a lot of sense, actually.”

Eren gawped at him. “You know what it _means_?!” he hissed.

Marco snorted. “Doesn’t everyone?” When he saw Eren’s face fall, he stopped smiling. “Oh. Right. Er. Well, this is awkward…” He scratched the back of his neck.

“How do you know what it is?!” Eren demanded, practically leaping across the table at him. “I didn’t have a fucking clue! I just sat there and said it was fine. What have I agreed to?!”

Marco stood up properly then, deciding his partial nudity was probably nothing compared to the inner turmoil Eren was wrestling with. The wretched expression on Eren’s face, the quiet musings Marco never thought were possible for such a loud person, were because of Armin?

Eren was turning redder and redder the longer Marco stared at him, mumbling incoherent nonsense and staring at the cracks in the table top rather than meeting his eye. Eren used to be the one who educated people. Back when Marco was an innocent eighteen year old, Eren had told him everything he wanted to know about the finer points of his new found sexuality. He let him know, often in very lewd detail, things he’d never dare ask anyone else. And now Marco was stood in his apartment, six years later, with Eren quickly taking on the pallor of a tomato. Oh, how the tables had turned. “So, you’ve been in the library because…”

“I’ve been trying to figure out what the fuck it means, yes!” Eren dragged a hand through his hair and groaned. “It’s been driving me crazy, and none of these books help!”

Marco opened the book to its first page. “Well, that much is obvious. This book was written in 1967, Eren.”

“So what, you’re gonna sue me now because our library hasn’t updated its collection in over thirty years?” Eren hissed.

Marco picked it up properly and flicked through the yellowing pages. He frowned. “Eren, this is also a literary criticism of contemporary Irish authors.”

“Alright, so I just grabbed any book with the word ‘sexuality’ in the title, is that such a crime?”

Marco swiped a hand against his brow and pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to think. “Eren, why didn’t you just ask?” he said, dropping his hand to gaze at his friend.

Eren wriggled uncomfortably under his eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted eventually, throwing his hands up in the air. “I guess I wanted to do this on my own. On my own terms.”

“Wow, Armin must be really something if you’re going to these lengths to get into bed with him.”

To Marco’s surprise, Eren flinched. When he looked back at Marco, he looked _insulted._ “Marco, this is way more than that.”

Marco felt his stomach drop. “O-oh,” was all he said. Eren saying he was in love was something he was used to hearing- during every conquest Eren would announce his undying love for the guy at least twice before they even got into bed together- but something had changed. Eren looked so honest now. There wasn’t a dirty little smirk on his face this time. He looked perfectly normal, perfectly functional. Everything was as it always was for him, apart from his eyes; they looked larger, blown out, like he’d just started seeing for the first time. It spiked something deep in the pit of Marco’s stomach. He’d been joking around about the Hook before, but it was well and truly sunk. If Eren was any more obvious, Marco would be able to see it wiggling through his chest, piercing the spot where it hurt the most, and he gulped back his own little fishing hook. “It’s…really…?”

Eren sighed. “I w-want it to be.” He let his eyes drop to the book again and tugged his jumper sleeves over his hands so only his fingertips poked out.

Marco wetted his lips. “What does it feel like?”

Eren snorted. “You’ve been in love before, Marco. You _know_ what it feels like.”

Marco sighed. _Oh, yeah. He knew._ “A-are you scared?” he asked.

Eren laughed, almost giddy as his eyes locked with Marco’s again. The turquoise and gold irises swam like paint being mixed. “Fucking terrified,” Eren grinned. “That’s why I have to make sure I get it _right._ ”

Marco gave him a watery smile. Both of them could joke about that, because Eren would never get it right. He was the boy who fucked up, always was and always would be, but that hardly mattered. There was no right or wrong for something like this, no puzzle to solve correctly, and even as Eren reached for the book between them and started looking for the word ‘demisexual’ in the index, Marco leant over the countertop and ruffled his hair. “You’ll be fine, you idiot,” he chided, diving back before Eren could land any vicious smacks on bare skin. “You sure you don’t want me to tell you?”

“I want to find it out on my own.” Eren bit his lip through a smile. “Might get credit for trying.”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“Clothes!” Sasha hollered as she re-entered the room, throwing a pair of jeans Marco had worn a few days before to him, and a shirt she’d no doubt picked up from the depleted store in his cupboard. “Now dress, ya nasty, before Jean loses all the blood in his body.” Marco grinned sheepishly and pulled on the jeans, remembering too late they were a bit tight. And Sasha had also grabbed his slightly shorter than normal shirt he usually only went to bed in. Oh well, he thought as he put it on over his head, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He hadn’t noticed the way Sasha’s eyes wandered to a spot that was blocked on his side by the island, but once he was dressed he did see her mouth drop open. “Eren, you’re supposed to be _watching_ the baby!”

“Wha- CLAUDINE.” Marco darted around the island in an instant, shoving Eren out of the way as he finally got a good look at the sofa. He wheezed out a breath of relief as he saw Claudine there, sleeping perfectly soundly despite the still blaring music and the further noise going on around her. But then, she was so still… was she alright?! Marco panicked and gave her the tiniest shake. “Claudine, sweetie?” he cooed. He exhaled once Claudine opened her eyes and blinked sleepily up at him. She’d slept through the whole thing. Of course. “Hey sleepyhead,” Marco murmured, picking her up to rest her on his chest. “Have you been keeping Jean up again?” Jean had been complaining about Claudine starting the terrible teething period, and Marco assumed that meant minimal sleep. The baby just snuggled into his neck, grouched in the smallest voice possible, and then went heavy. She had gone back to sleep, just like that? He wished he had her ability.

He was in the middle of lifting her up a little further onto his chest when Jean walked back into the living space, the tips of his ears still bright red. But then he stopped in his tracks. Marco realised too late that his short top was riding up with his movements- and his jeans stopped at his hip bones. He gulped. Jean really didn’t do bare skin, did he? “Oh, s-sorr-”

“I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM AGAIN,” Jean announced, almost tripping over his own feet in his hurry.

“You just went!” Eren protested.

“SHUT UP JAEGER I LEFT SOMETHING IN THERE.”

“Yeah, your dignity.”

Marco rolled his eyes at that. The soft weight in his arms was giving him a strange sense of strength he was definitely searching for, and it caused a sharp swallow and a slow walk to his room. “Hey, where you going?” Sasha asked. “I thought we could all hang out!”

Marco felt a stab of guilt. Had he been neglecting his friends that much? He bit his lip as he turned back to face them. “I need to… put Claudine down somewhere.”

“She’ll be fine here, what’s the proble-”

“Let him go, Sash.” Marco’s eyes flicked over to where Eren was propped against the island. He wasn’t sure whether the pain that was wracking his heart at the thought of opening the box was that obvious, but Eren could tell that something was different. He imagined it written all over him, written in red marker blaring out the words ‘THOMAS’ to make Eren baulk. His skin began to prickle with consciousness. Was it the way he was standing? The way he was speaking? Was it even the way he was clutching hold of Claudine like she was some kind of life raft keeping him afloat? Marco wasn’t sure. Something had to be giving him away. He shuffled under the intense, odd coloured gaze Eren was fixing him with, and tried out a meek smile. Eren didn’t move. “He seems busy. Maybe some other time.”

Marco mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to Eren as he backed towards his room,  listening to Sasha’s demands that Eren go over and pat her head and Eren’s disgusted noises that accompanied it. Marco couldn’t help the chuff of a laugh that came out of him. He knew Eren wasn’t everyone’s favourite person, but he cared. That was better than nothing at all.

He set Claudine down in the centre of his bed once he reached his room. He was careful not to wake her as he arranged his pillows around her in a makeshift fort, mainly to stop her from rolling off anywhere. He wasn’t sure whether babies did things like that in their sleep, but seeing as Claudine was quite an energetic baby, he wouldn’t put it past her. As she dozed, he ducked under his bed with a jolt to his chest.

There it was. Covered in a fine layer of dust. He could do this.

He took a deep breath and pulled the box towards him, scooting it out from under the bed and leaving it in front of him on the floor. His heart was stampeding in his ears like a startled animal, and when he clenched his fists he noticed they were getting sweaty. _Come on, Marco. It’ll be fine. You can cry. It’s allowed._

He’d been avoiding it for too long. He had to do it.

He was one step closer to mentally opening the box when a pair of shoes entered his line of vision. “What are you doing in here?” Jean asked, sounding decidedly less flustered now. Maybe he’d gotten used to it. Who knew. It probably wasn’t the best idea to ask.

Marco didn’t take his eyes off the box at first. “I put Claudine down in a place she was less likely to roll onto a hard surface,” he replied, smiling weakly up at him.

Jean didn’t look terrible- but he’d looked better. His eyes were sunken into the black shadows that seemed to take up permanent residence on his face, and his hair looked more grey than ashen in the light from Marco’s window. He snarled at Marco’s words. “Fucking Jaeger, I told him to keep an eye on her.” He sighed. “Oh well, that’s what I get for asking a child to look after another child.”

“He’s older than you.”

“That honestly does not make a blind bit of difference.” There was a pause, before he sank to the floor opposite him, crossing his legs neatly beneath him. His jeans had holes in the knees that gaped in protest. “What’ve you got there?”

Marco sucked in a breath. He saw Jean frown at that, but he wasn’t sure what to say. _Nothing much. Just a box of the last things my dying boyfriend wanted to give me. Nothing major._ “I just need to do some housekeeping,” he decided on, despite the fact his hands were shaking.

Jean raised a brow. “Bullshit. No one gets this nervous about housekeeping. What’s in the box?”

Marco gulped. There was no easy way of saying it. There was never going to be. “You know I told you about Thomas? My boyfriend, the one who…”

“I remember,” Jean nodded. He glanced down at the box. “This some of his stuff?”

Marco sniffed. Nodded. “His mum sent it. She found it. It was labelled for me.”

“Ah.” Jean’s frown deepened. They both stared at the box for a brief minute, Marco still trying to convince himself to open it, before Jean asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

Marco looked up. Jean’s eyes looked like fire, and the intensity of his gaze made his stomach turn over. He wasn’t sure. Part of him thought it was something he should do on his own, in the dark, when everyone was out or asleep so they couldn’t hear the loud and ugly sobbing he was bound to let loose in the small room. But the little hook seemed to give a big tug at the thought of Jean staying there with him, looking through with him, holding his hand through it. He had a feeling that if it was up to him, he would talk himself out of opening it. He worried at the bottom swell of his lip with his teeth. “Y-you don’t have to…” he began.

“I didn’t ask that.” Jean shuffled closer to inspect the label. “I asked whether you wanted me here. Do you?”

_I want you._ Marco gulped back the boulder sized lump in his throat and nodded. “Y-yeah. Staying with me would be… would be good.”

Jean’s ears flushed at that, but his face remained steady. “Okay. I’ll stay with you.” He started to pick at one of the dog-eared box corners as he waited. “Ready to open it?”

Marco chuckled weakly, resting a hand on the seam of the box. He tried to ignore the way it trembled. “I’ll never be ready to open it.”

Jean looked away, mouth fixed in a scowl as he thought. Marco kept his eyes on his own hand, willing it to stop shaking and open the damn thing. He jumped when another paler hand tentatively covered his own. His eyes shot up to find Jean looking down at their hands, red-faced and awkward. “How about now?” he asked. His eyes flicked back up. His irises were blown out again, like supernovas kicking up stardust. Marco felt his own blush rising up around his cheeks, but it hardly mattered. They stared at each other for a good few seconds before Jean cleared his throat. “L-look, I’m not good with the whole comforting lark. I’m pretty shit, if I’m honest. But I can give it a go, if we open this together. If that’s…what you want…?”

Marco nodded, lips twitching up into a smile as Jean slowly slipped his hand down his fingers to grasp at one of the flaps. At Jean’s expectant eyebrow raise, they opened it up.

And there was the smell again. It washed over Marco like a ghost, the smell he remembered breathing in so often it became commonplace. It was musty, like it had grown old and faded like a photograph, but it still lingered. It still smelt of sunny days and borrowed time. It was enough to cause a hitch in Marco’s breathing. But then he felt Jean’s gaze pierce him, a fierce kind of concern that kept him grounded. Marco wheezed out a breath. “This is gonna be hard,” he admitted.

“It’s alright, take your time.” Jean quirked a weak smile. “I don’t exactly have a busy social calendar.”

Marco laughed, swiping at the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. “Jean Kirschtein making jokes? The world really has gone mad.”

“Oh shut up.” Jean peered into the box now, reaching out to touch the tissue paper the package was wrapped in, fingers brushing past Hyacinth’s letter. Marco had the insane urge to slap his hand away, to demand he not touch it, to shout a ‘how dare he even think he was worthy of going near it’, but then he noticed how careful he was being. He barely caused a crinkle in the paper as he moved, his eyes always darting up to check if it was okay, if he was going too far. The consideration made Marco smile. He handed Jean the letter without a word, Jean’s hands jolting back at the movement. “You can read it.”

Jean’s eyes looked from the letter to Marco like it was some sort of test. “M-Marco, I don’t know…” he began.

“Jean, it’s fine.” Marco pressed the letter into his hands. “You’re my friend, you deserve to know more about me. I can choose to share this with you, and I have.” He shrugged, a far more natural smile springing onto his face. “It’s okay. It’s only Hyacinth.”

“Hyacinth?”

“Thomas’s mother.” Marco watched as Jean rocked back on his heels, the letter unfolding in his grip. “She’s quite something. I think you and her would get on.”

Jean snorted. “I don’t know whether to feel insulted or not.”

“Be honoured. Hyacinth doesn’t like just anyone.”

“How do you know she’ll like me then?”

Marco grinned. She would like him. She would take every flaw he thought he had and make it a quality. It was just the way she worked. She would call his aversion to people preference for perfection, his twitches nothing more than aftershocks. Besides, she was a creative soul- Jean would fascinate her. “I guess I just have a hunch,” he replied. He picked at the package’s paper for a little while longer, biting his lip. He was listening for Claudine’s snuffling, or any questions to come from Jean about Hyacinth and the frankly questionable way she kept getting arrested, but none came. There were no distractions. Marco sighed. _Here goes._

His fingers didn’t tremble quite so much now they had Jean’s to accompany them. The paper resisted for a moment, like it didn’t want to divulge its secrets, but after an insistent yank the package tore open.

He hadn’t expected to stifle a snort of laughter upon opening the package, but that was exactly what sprung from his mouth as he poked the soft material Hyacinth (or was it Thomas?) had packed in with the album. “Oh my _god_ ,” he mumbled, stroking a hand down the material with the itch of tears. He wasn’t even sure if it was sadness or laughter.

Jean glanced up from the letter and frowned. “What is it?”

Marco didn’t respond. Instead, he just pulled the fabric out and unfolded it as answer. He didn’t blame the way Jean gawped at it. It was, simply put, the most atrocious hoodie in the known universe. It was the most vibrant tie dye rainbow colours Marco had ever seen, still as bright as the day he’d first set eyes on it, all set in a swirling pattern down its front. Marco held it out at arm’s length, remembering the times Thomas had worn it, forced it over his head, kissed him in it…

“What the actual fuck is that thing?”

Marco looked over the hoodie to see Jean staring with a look of absolute horror on his face. “It’s – er- it’s Thomas’s hoodie. His favourite one.” He brought it close to his face and inhaled. Something inside him throbbed at the way it only smelt of dust. Thomas had washed it before he’d gone into the hospital. He’d not put it on again. Marco kept it close to his chest, though, realising he could still get away with wearing it. “It’s… super warm… and he used to let me wear it a lot.”

“Right.” Jean still looked a little unnerved. “It’s… er… lovely.” His face twisted as he stared. “Um. Seriously. I’m sure it was, er, the height of fashion.”

Marco didn’t know what brought up the laughter in his stomach. He was sure it was down to nerves, but there was something else too. Maybe it was the painful way Jean was trying to be nice, or maybe it was the slightly accusatory look he was giving the hoodie in Marco’s hands, but the laughter burst out of him in a cacophony of snorts and sniggers. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. Jean stared at him like he had well and truly lost it, but Marco just roared harder at the confusion in his face. “Look, f-fuck you, alright?! It’s wonderful, it’s the best fucking thing I ever saw in my goddamn life! What do you want me to fucking say, I don’t know the ETIQUETTE,” Jean cried as Marco rolled around on the floor, still clutching the hoodie. “What’s so FUCKING funny?!” he shrieked. Marco’s sides threatened to break with how hard they heaved under the weight the laughter carried. Even though it was heavy, it fluttered out of his mouth like every chuckle had grown wings, and he couldn’t help the giddy feeling that rose up too, surpassing the hurt- if only for a moment.

Once the laughter started to calm down, Marco finally managed to get out, “y-you don’t have to _like_ it.” When Jean frowned, he just sniggered again, wiping one eye to let the tears out. “Oh my god you were trying so hard… oh help me…”

Crying felt as good as the laughter. The tears that streamed down his face weren’t tainted with as much pain as he thought they would be. They still carved paths in his cheeks that had been traced thousands of times before, still stung and itched and tasted of salt, but the empty hole he was afraid would devour him again stayed relatively stable. He only realised he’d stopped laughing when Jean wrapped his arms around him and yanked him to his chest a beat later. _Oh_ , he realised with a jolt, _I’m still crying._

And then the sadness hit like an icicle to the colon.

He missed him. _He missed him, he missed him, he missed him._ Of course he would; it had been three years and he still pined for him. Sometimes he woke up and still thought Thomas was nothing but a phone call away. But when he heard Jean hush him in as tender a voice as he could manage and rub his back, the hole in his gut seemed to grow smaller. It only shrank an inch. But in that inch, another emotion bled through the flesh-wound. With a pang of realisation, Marco found himself _hoping_. And that made him nuzzle closer into Jean’s chest, clutch at him tighter, breathe a little steadier. He might have been able to believe, in that instant, that everything would be okay.

Jean held him against his chest until the crying subsided. He kept running the same hand up and down Marco’s back, steady and comforting, and Marco tried not to let the movement get too familiar. He pulled away with a sigh that rattled his lungs, swiping at his eyes and trying not to sniffle too loudly. “S-sorry,” he mumbled. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to look at Jean in case all he saw was a curled lip and narrowed eyes. So when he heard his voice, he couldn’t help but ready himself for an explanation.

“Don’t be. You have every right to… to be sad.” Jean sounded serious. It wasn’t the cutting, cynical, defensive kind of serious he usually gave off to everyone. It was more subdued than that. Marco choked on a final sob trying to burst out of his chest, and Jean’s hand steadied him. Marco hung his head. Gritted his teeth. _Don’t cry, don’t do that, it’s weak…_

“I’ve never seen you cry before.”

It was a statement, plain and simple, and Marco bit his lip. Sniffled some more. Tried to be a bit more adult about it all. “W-well, n-now we’re even,” he said, finally lifting his gaze to Jean’s. What he saw made his eyes snap open.

Jean was rubbing his own eyes viciously, jaw clenching as he tried to keep the rest of his emotion in check. Marco blinked. Jean had been crying… for him? “Ugh, shit,” Jean hissed, giving up on the whole rubbing idea and just hiding his face in his hand. “Ignore me, I don’t deserve to get upset about it.”

“It’s okay. It’s… it’s pretty sad…”

Jean’s fingers parted to blink at him. He brought his attention back to the box the moment he caught the wobbly way Marco smiled. “I had to do this too, you know. Not on the same scale, obviously but… when I packed. Had to rifle through all her stuff. _Our_ stuff. I know it hurts.” Jean finally dropped his hand to show a pair of fiercely flashing eyes. The tears just seemed to fuel their brightness. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Dunno. Just feel like I should say it.” Jean looked down at the package still in the box. “Doing shit like this sucks. It’s like having a black hole punched through your middle that just wants to suck in the rest of you until there’s nothing left.”

“I need to do it,” Marco said, starting to fold the hoodie up as neatly as he could. “I just… have to.”

“I know, I know.” Jean paused. “I don’t like it, though.”

Marco glanced up. “What?”

“Seeing you cry.” Jean wet his lips when Marco only gave him a quizzical look. “I never want to see you cry again. U-unless it’s for a good reason.”

Marco just sniffled in response and let his head flop against Jean’s shoulder. Jean didn’t even stiffen like Marco expected him to, just reached up and nervously patted the back of his head. Marco sighed. Any contact was good. “Thank you,” he mumbled into the fabric, determined not to let anymore tears out. “Good to know.”

Jean could clearly sense the way Marco’s mood was shifting, as he sunk his fingers into his hair after a brief pause and started to play with it. His fingertips skittered over Marco’s scalp like they were excited to be there, and Marco hummed at the feeling. “I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Jean said. His voice sounded shaky.

“Mmm, what’s that?”

“I don’t care how wonderful your boyfriend was…” Marco could hear the tiny smile in Jean’s voice as he continued, “he had terrible fashion taste.”

Marco let out a good natured huff and pulled away. “I’d tell you not to disrespect the dead, but I think Thomas would agree with you.”

“Why did he wear it, if he hated it so much?” Jean asked. His mouth snapped shut almost immediately afterwards, like he wasn’t sure the question was allowed.

Marco shrugged, the smiles starting to creep back onto his face. He was starting to feel warm again, like the icicle was melting bit by bit. “It was a warm hoodie! Trost gets cold. Also, Hyacinth bought it for him and she demanded to see him wearing it in pictures at least twice a month.”

Jean sniggered. “Wow, is she really that crazy?”

“She’s… unique?” Marco tried. “She’s only changed her name three times, never fully emerged from the 1960s and is banned from ever entering Belgium again.” He cringed. “Okay, that makes her sound mental…”

“Sounds like some character. The nice kind, though.” Jean gave him a rather critical look. “You need to reply to her soon. You can’t just let someone like that go.”

“I know,” Marco said. “It’s just hard to know what to say.”

“She lost someone too.”

When Marco’s eyes widened, Jean shrank away with a short huff, raking a hand through his own hair and diverting his attention to the sleeping form on the bed. He was drawing away, letting Marco have some space, and Marco wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. But after Jean rose to his feet and checked Claudine over, he was back; this time he sat next to Marco, brushing their shoulders up against each other as a reminder he was there. It was a silent reminder, but one that Marco felt he needed. The hole in his chest was mending, and as Jean upturned his palm as it lay on his knee, Marco gave him a smile before taking it.

Awkward or not, Jean Kirschtein was not a bad comforter.

* * *

Time felt liquid that day. It dripped by like candlewax, thick and heavy, and Marco had no hope of keeping up. It was the way his chest tightened that made it hard, like his body was rebelling against the memories his mind was dealing him.

The photo album was somehow worse than the hoodie. It was more personal, more real. Marco could see the pictures of him and Thomas, Thomas and Eren, pictures taken of him that he couldn’t even remember posing for, and he could remember. He could remember the laughter, the talk, the tears. It played it all back to him, like an old vinyl dipped in sepia, and left him with silent tears rolling down his cheeks from the memories that warbled out. But there was someone to grab for him; Jean was there, hand squeezing every now and again and casting worried looks his way, and it was enough for Marco to cling to.

He traced the letters Thomas had penned in a sharp black ink with a lump in his throat, and saw the way they got steadily less legible the further back they reached. Thomas was rushing by the end. He’d been aware of how little time he had. He’d wanted to finish it. That hurt more than anything.

Marco refused to read the first page. It was covered in writing and doodles and dying petals stuck in with tape; definitely not the sort of thing he would be able to read dry-eyed and in company. So he skipped forward to the first set of pictures, the nice ones. The ones where everything was okay. He’d forgotten how much of a sap Thomas really was; the first picture of him was simple, but under it Thomas had written ‘ _The moment I knew I was doomed_ ’. Marco snorted at that. Jean wrinkled his nose. “He really was a sap, huh?” he said.

“He only got worse once he got sick,” Marco replied. To his surprise, there wasn’t a hint of pain. Maybe he’d used it all up; maybe he could only take so much before he went numb.

Jean helped in his own little way. He kept asking questions. He would point at a particular picture and ask its story, or just ask simple questions about who Thomas was as a person. Marco began by telling him when Thomas got sick, but Jean waved it away. “I don’t want to know all that,” he said. “That wasn’t _him_ , was it? I mean, it was something that _happened_ to him, but it wasn’t his life. You’ve probably told everyone about that- that’s what everyone asks about. I wanna know the actual stuff.”

However surprised Marco was at hearing it, that was exactly what he did. He thought it would hurt, talking about Thomas the way Jean wanted, but there was nothing. In fact, he even started to feel better. He told Jean that Thomas had been training to be a doctor, had been Eren’s roommate at university (it was part of a buddy program for students with disadvantaged backgrounds), had met Marco when he decided to walk straight into him, lost, on the first day of classes. Thomas picked up his books, carried them under his arm and walked Marco to his building. Jean said how cliché it all sounded, and Marco couldn’t help but agree.

It was a nice feeling, sharing these snippets of memories with someone; it was like they had been trapped in little glass jars in his mind, but now he was opening the lids one by one. By the time he’d gotten halfway through the album, he decided to tell a story involving Thomas and a preacher that had them both in fits of laughter. _Yeah_ , he decided as he listened to Jean laugh, _this was a good idea._

They ended up stopping when Jean sheepishly mentioned he hadn’t eaten anything all day, after his stomach made a noise that would have put a tiger to shame. “Jean!” Marco gaped, “What do you mean you haven’t _eaten_?”

“Well I came over to ask if you wanted to grab some food or come over or something…”

Marco just gawped at him in horror. “That was four _hours_ ago!”

“Doesn’t matter. We got distracted,” Jean shrugged. It didn’t melt the stricken expression on Marco’s face, however. “Marco, for fuck’s sake, it’s _fine_. I just didn’t have any food left in the house,” he mumbled. “S’not a problem. I get by on one meal a day most of the time.”

That explained why Jean was so skinny. Marco was sure Jean had actually _lost_ weight since he’d known him; his clothes were hanging off of him more and more as the weeks went by, and he had been looking a lot paler than usual too. “You need to eat, Jean!” he scolded, scooping the album up and placing it carefully back into the safety of the box.

“Sometimes I forget,” Jean defended, flushing at his own honesty. “And… baby stuff’s expensive…”

Marco frowned. Jean was remarkably selfless, for the impression he put across. He knew that formula milk and nappies and all the extra things that came with having a baby probably mounted up, but Jean starving himself was not going to help Claudine in the slightest. Marco had never imagined that Jean would be forced to choose between him or Claudine getting a decent meal, but now the knowledge smarted like a sting in his stomach. “That’s it,” he said, scooting the box under the bed with his foot, “we’re going to get food.”

“N-now?”

“Now.”

“But-”

“No buts. What do you want?”

“Marco, I can’t make you pay for my-”

“ _JEAN._ ”

Jean didn’t put up much of a fight. He muttered something to himself, scooped a grizzly Claudine up and looked around for the carrier. Claudine was not in the best of moods; she huffed and puffed and tried to wriggle out of Jean’s arms the moment he got hold of her, letting out a frustrated wail when she found the grip on her too tight. Jean ignored her protests, tight-lipped and silent, but Marco could see the flash of concern in his eyes. Once Claudine was put into the carrier and strapped in, she was even more unamused. “She’s starting to teethe,” Jean said in answer to Marco’s silent question. “She’s been like this the past few days.”

Marco felt a flash of sympathy. Jean was trying his best, but with a teething baby and an unstable income, there was no wonder he was forced to compromise. And, knowing Jean, there was no way he would ever come first in his list of priorities. Claudine would be chosen over himself every time.

Jean admitted he might possibly want pizza, so Marco towed him into the nearest takeaway without another word. Jean was going to eat and he was going to eat _well_ if it killed him. Under the strange ultraviolet light of the takeaway, they squinted at the tiny board stating the various flavours and chose pepperoni in a single breath. Marco could only afford one to share, but Jean still tried to frantically pat down his wallet as Marco paid. “I’ll get food the next time you come over,” he promised vehemently, jiggling Claudine in the carrier as they waited.

“Jean, you don’t have to keep repaying me. I thought we were past that,” Marco said.

“This isn’t me repaying you, you dick, it’s just me doing something nice for you!” When Marco turned around, he didn’t miss the way Jean avoided his eye and shuffled his feet. “Y-you deserve to have nice things done for you. You do enough for everyone else.”

Marco felt the little hook dig in just that little bit deeper. The pizza was handed to him and he ducked out of the shop before he could say anything he regretted, the warmth of the pizza toasting his hands in the cold, and merely gave Jean a small smile for his words. _Don’t be weird don’t be weird don’t be weird._

They didn’t talk much on the walk back, Claudine’s aggravated wailing enough noise for them to deal with. The emotional energy from the day, the pent up nerves and fear and grief seemed to drain Marco of any motivation to strike up conversation, but it hardly mattered. There was something about Jean that meant the silence between them was normal and comfortable; it didn’t sit like a solid thing in the middle of them, but rather hovered above them, waiting with no urgency to be filled. Jean wasn’t focused on him anyway, too busy tickling Claudine’s stomach and trying to stop her whimpers and wails. Claudine’s cries were grating on Marco, but not in the annoying kind of way; he was feeling stabs of worry with every step they took, wondering if there was anything that could be done to stop the teething being quite so painful, or allowing Jean the sleep he so desperately deserved. He tried not to glance at her too much in case Jean noticed. _She’s not yours_ , his voice reminded him, as it always did. _You have no right to worry about her._

Jean grew more alert when they stepped onto his street, his strides growing longer and faster the closer they got to his front door. Marco kept pace with a puzzled glance, but then spotted a white scrap of paper on his door that answered his question. His confusion morphed into a frown as Jean practically jogged up the steps, Claudine quietening like she knew there was something important nailed to her door. Marco didn’t have the chance to read it; Jean ripped the paper off the door with a seething expression and fumbled for his keys. “Fucking… _asshole…_ I told him to wait… told him… shit…” His fingers shook too much to find his keys, which sent up more panicked cursing and muttering. Marco took a step closer, poised to put a hand on Jean’s shoulder if need be, but it didn’t seem like the right time. Jean was close to a full blown panic, and Marco knew that touching him would be the exact opposite of what he needed. Instead, he kept his voice low and murmured, “What is it?”

Jean twitched at his words, like he’d forgotten he was even there. He mumbled something incoherent as he found his keys and dug them into the lock like they were trying to escape his sweat-slick hands, and gave the door a harsh kick to let them in. Marco walked in quietly, pizza box still in his hands, and let Jean lead the way into the main room.

Jean took Claudine out of the carrier without a word to her enraged squawking and set her down in her cot, ripping the carrier off his body in a heartbeat and bringing the crumpled paper up to his face for the second time. And that was when he began to pace, his strides short and snappy like an agitated wolf around the centre of the room. Marco kept out of the way, sidling into the kitchen to put the pizza down before inching closer to where Claudine sat crying out for attention. He scooped her up in an instant, her enraged bawling lessening in volume at the treatment as he jigged her up and down, rubbing small circles into her back just like Jean had done for him hours earlier. Her crying didn’t stop, but the anger in her little voice grew smaller and smaller until she was sobbing into the side of his neck. His shirt was definitely going to get soaked in drool and baby snot, but he scarcely cared. He glanced up to see Jean still pacing, pulling at chunks of his hair, swearing. He might not have been able to help Jean out, but he could solve one problem- the tiny little problem crying on his chest. “Hey now Princess, what’s up?” he cooed into her ear, tickling the back of her neck as she gave a particularly loud wail. “Your teeth giving you grief, huh?”

He carried on talking to her, letting her snuggle into him snot and drool be damned, and even dared to sneak a small kiss on the side of her head. He didn’t blame her for being so upset; teething sounded like hell on earth especially for someone so small. He was glad he couldn’t remember the pain. He wandered over to the side of the futon and picked up the music box Jean had clearly laid close in case Claudine deemed it necessary in the night, and wound it up as best he could one-handed. Once the jingling music started, her attention on her aching gums was switched to the box. Slowly but surely, she came round. She turned towards the box with wide, awestruck eyes, and started to wriggle a little in his arms. The music box seemed to be doing Jean a great deal of good too; his pacing had slowed, the pulls to his hair were less frequent, and after another circuit of the room he let his eyes fall on Marco. Marco gave him a small smile in return. “She’s alright, Jean,” he said. Jean huffed out what sounded more like a sigh of relief, and stormed over to the nearest light switch. Marco watched curiously as he took a deep breath, willing _something_ to the surface, and flicked the switch. Nothing happened.

_So that was what it was._

“F-fucking landlord cut my power,” Jean hissed, spinning around and thrusting the paper into Marco’s free hand. “I told him I’d have the money. I told him next week, I told him…” Jean spun around again and let out a frustrated noise.

Marco read through the notice with a sinking heart. It didn’t look like Jean had managed to pay his bills for a good few weeks. The landlord had gone easy on him- if it was anyone else Marco assumed they would have been evicted. “So you’ve got no power?” Marco asked.

Jean shook his head. “I got jack shit.” He ran a hand through his hair again, tugging it sharply with a grimace. “Can’t be helped.”

“You can always-”

Jean gave him a sharp look. “You’ve got Eren with you, don’t ask me to live there too. You don’t want me there as well.” He let out a sigh, and to Marco’s surprise let his head flop against Marco’s shoulder. “I’ll manage. Always do.”

Marco assumed it was okay for touch now, so slung an arm around Jean’s slight frame and rubbed his bicep, keeping the contact as tender as he dared. “Sometimes you should let someone take care of you, Jean. You’re not all alone anymore.”

Jean sniffed- was he holding back tears? Marco increased his grip on Jean’s arm. “I know. S’not an easy feeling to shake, though.”

Marco nodded. He understood. Being left to fend for yourself equipped you with a survival instinct the size of a small planet. But he couldn’t help the feeling that surged within him that ordered him to shoulder some of that instinct, harbour it away and replace it with gentle touches and delicate lips. He tried to shake himself free of it, but it clung on stubbornly. “Well, I’m taking care of you right now. And right now, you need to eat.”

Jean bit his lip. “I don’t feel like eating anymore.” When he saw the way Marco’s face soured in the slowly dying light, he managed to let out a weak snicker. “What, you gonna force me?”

“You don’t want to hold me to that offer, Kirschtein.”

Marco ended up demanding that Jean sit down on the futon and thrust the pizza box into his stomach before returning to the kitchen. Jean had said that he had a number of candles lying around in a drawer somewhere, ‘for emergencies’. Marco had a feeling they were used more often than not, especially when he fished them out and saw how burned down to the wick some were. Once he’d gathered them all up in his arms (shaking his head at the fact they were mainly tealights), he returned to the living area to find Jean slowly munching his way through his first slice of pizza, eyes only for the box and what it contained. Marco grinned at that, pleased at his one little triumph, and set about placing the candles about the room. Jean threw him a lighter after Marco managed to burn his fingertips twice on the matches he’d snatched from the kitchen, and with every tiny flame that sprung to life, the room flickered along with it.

Marco had gotten halfway around the room before the lit candles did much of a difference to the darkness threatening to smother them, and he dared to look in Jean’s direction as he moved. The dark made it difficult to make out, but if the prickling feeling on the back of his neck was anything to go by, Jean was watching him. Marco gulped, trying not to imagine the way Jean was staring at him as anything more than platonic. He had the final few left to trace a line close to the futon in case they couldn’t see where it began or ended, and those were the ones that sprung Jean’s face up into an amber, glowing relief. Marco bit his lip, before he realised it could actually be seen. If Jean did notice, he didn’t comment. He just continued to eat slowly, chewing like it was an effort, and Marco sat cross legged off the futon to give him some space.

They ate in silence, neither of them really wanting to mention the bill or the state of Jean’s bank account. Marco was happy to sit and drink in the way the candlelight made Jean look so warm and highlighted his cheekbones. He had a feeling Jean was doing the same to him, but he couldn’t be sure. Halfway through a mouthful of pizza, Jean spoke. “C-can you stay tonight?” he asked. It sounded like a private question.

Marco tried to control the way his stomach jolted. The heat was out. That would mean cold. It would mean Jean snuggling closer to him to share body heat, leg tangling together, hands tangling together, _spooning…_ Marco inwardly whined at how _unfair_ it all was. But this was Jean. He couldn’t say no. “I can stay tonight,” he agreed softly, offering a warm smile.

Jean seemed relieved at that. “G-good,” he sighed. “Good, that’s… that’s good.”

Marco smiled again. “Do you have anything planned?”

Jean glowered at him. “Oh sure, Freckles, I got tickets to the fucking opera, then I thought we could go visit the Queen.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t getting any better, you know.”

“Shut up.”

Marco chuckled. He glanced over to Claudine, who was being suspiciously quiet. The snoozy kind of suspicious. “I’m glad she’s getting some sleep,” he said. “Does she sleep through the night now?”

Jean snorted. “Sorta. Still wakes me up if she’s teething bad- which is pretty much every fuckin’ night.”

Marco took his last slice with a gentle nudge to Jean’s knee. “You put up with so much, Jean. You’re a better man than me.”

“I don’t think being a better man than you is possible, Marco.”

He felt something wake up inside of him at Jean’s words, like it was waiting for the appropriate moment. Unfortunately, the warmth that swept through him was too familiar. Jean was giving him the softest, fondest smile imaginable, and everything in Marco’s system was screaming at him to _kiss this boy, this wonderful boy who doesn’t think he’s worth anything and make him realise just how beautiful he is_. Marco wasn’t so sure about that; he wasn’t made of witchcraft, after all. Jean probably needed a lot more than just one kiss for how broken up he was, but the idea of kissing him over and over again was definitely something Marco’s subconscious liked the sound of. But Marco kept himself levered back, and kept his own smile calm and polite. The blush was just an involuntary reaction, after all. Definitely just involuntary. Jean didn’t need to know otherwise.

Jean ducked his head down after that, finishing off the rest of the pizza with a small groan of contentment he couldn’t quite hide, and got up to get a bottle for Claudine. “I’m starting her on solid food soon,” he called over his shoulder, “but at the moment this is all I have. She’ll have to live with it til I can get a blender or some shit.”

“A blender?” Marco frowned.

“Yeah, to make that mush shit that babies like.”

Marco grinned and poked his head around the door of the kitchen. Jean was in the middle of shaking up a bottle to condense down the powder he’d poured in. His eyes were glazed over with the thoughts running through his head, but when he heard movement they darted back to reality. “What sort of mush?” Marco found himself asking.

“Banana mush, sweet potato mush… er… carrot mush. Maybe something porridge-y, haven’t really figured it out yet.”

Marco made a face. “Sounds delightful.”

“Is for babies.” Marco caught the tail end of Jean’s smile.

Jean scooted him out of the kitchen and made a beeline for Claudine’s cot, muttering something about ‘high maintenance’ and ‘have to manage’ but Marco got there first. “Can I feed her?” he asked. “I’ve not done it before.” When Jean’s face creased into a frown, Marco backtracked. “D-do you mind? Sorry, it might have been a weird question to ask but-”

“It’s fine.”

Marco blinked, wrongfooted by the response. “It is?” he asked blankly. He definitely hadn’t been expecting a ‘fine’. He was actually waiting for an ‘it’s my baby stop getting so involved’, but this… this he could work with.

“Yeah. It’s fine.”  Jean shrugged, handing the bottle to him and lifting a sleepy yet grouchy Claudine out of her cot. “Feel like I should get some sketching done anyway. You’d be helping me out.” Claudine let out a wailing noise as Jean shifted her, clearly annoyed by the pain in her gums, and flopped her face onto Jean’s shoulder. Jean winced, lip curling and eyes narrowing, and prised her free with a hiss. It took Marco a moment to realise she was trying to bite him.

“C’mere, sweetie,” Marco cooed, taking her from Jean’s outstretched hands and slotting her in the space between his chest and his arm. “Bite on the bottle for a bit, there we are.” Claudine grabbed for it greedily, hands reaching up to grab hold of the bottle as if to show him that she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. He glanced up to see Jean rubbing at his neck with a grimace. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine.” He dragged a chair from the corner of the room to where Marco stood and let himself slump on the futon with a sigh. He snatched his glasses from the three legged nightstand and carefully put them on like he was hoping they wouldn’t break. “Never hurts that much, s’just uncomfortable. She never pierces the skin. Just like a very slobbery hickey, ugh.” He rubbed his neck a little more and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Probably the most action I’ll be getting for a while.”

Marco chuckled and sat down on the offered chair, earning a disgusted grunt by Claudine as the bottle was dislodged from her mouth for a millisecond. “Don’t make teething turn you into a little vampire, sweetie. We don’t want that!” The tiny little crinkles at the corners of Claudine’s eyes suggested to him that she was trying to smile, and he relaxed. He noticed Jean reach for his sketchbook and pencils, and raised an eyebrow. “What are you sketching?” he asked.

The candlelight, however flickering it was, didn’t hide the way Jean scratched the back of his neck with his pencil and avoided Marco’s eye when he replied, “Warm ups. Just some still life, observational drawing, usual shit.”

“Do you have a commission due soon?”

Jean nodded. “Need to sketch up some stuff for a portfolio for them to look through before I start painting. Picky bastards. They know what I do, else they wouldn’t have quoted me. But I guess I can’t complain- money is money.”

Marco shifted Claudine a little and just let himself sink into the silence that fell over them, the same comfortable silence that made him want to sit and drink in everything that surrounded the boy on the futon.

Jean had once told him that everything had a gravitational pull, that sometimes the pull was so strong objects like the moon could do nothing but be pulled into a never ending orbit. _Maybe that’s what this is_ , Marco thought as he held Claudine close to him and watched the miniature flames dance close by him. Jean had arrived in his life and disrupted his pull. Marco was the one in everyone’s orbit; he fell into every pull or jolt that he could just so he could feel a little less alone. But now he was pulled into Jean’s orbit, and everything changed. Maybe Jean had a stronger pull than he thought. And as he watched him, brow furrowed and pencil scratching across the book on his lap, Marco knew what the moon felt like.

Claudine finished her bottle and started to snore, pulling Marco far enough out of his own headspace that he got up and put her back in her cot, tucking the sheets around her and daring to stroke the back of a finger against her cheek. The tug in his stomach was more parental than he liked to admit, but he couldn’t help smiling as he returned to his chair. Jean had stopped drawing, and was watching him intently. Marco cleared his throat. “How’s it going?”

Jean blinked and dived back into his sketchbook, mumbling a quick, “s’alright” before Marco could question him.

Marco let the silence sit there for a beat longer. “I finished _The Catcher in the Rye._ It was good.”

“Good. You should read _Gatsby_ next. And actually read it.” Jean smiled to himself as he turned a page and continued his sketches.

“Do you have a copy here?” Marco asked.

“The man asks the stupidest questions,” Jean tutted. “’Course I have, in the bookcase.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“Another stupid question.” Jean’s smile was a little more quirked now, like he wasn’t holding it back quite so much. “You can borrow any of ‘em, Marco.” He chanced a look up at Marco, the candles showing just how dark his cheeks flushed before he looked back at his sketchbook. “W-whenever you want. W-whichever ones you want.” He paused for just long enough to think, before he added, “I’d _like_ you to borrow them.”

Marco tried to stop his eyes from widening. Jean was so particular with his books. A few months ago he wouldn’t have dared let anyone touch them, let alone read them without checking which one it was. And the more Jean glanced up at him as he sketched, the more Marco realised how much it really did mean for Jean to say something like that. He also realised, after a few more fervent glances…

“Are you sketching me?”

Jean’s eyes flew up in alarm, and the sketchbook was slammed shut. “No,” he blurted.

Marco laughed. “Sure, like that’s not suspicious.”

Jean’s face, if possible, looked more mortified. “L-Look, I can’t help it alright? You’re just…”

Marco’s brow rose. “Just what?” he asked.

“You’re… just… you’re a good subject to draw.” Jean huffed out through his nose and tried to subtly wipe his sweaty palms on his battered old jeans. “You… have… you’re just interesting. Anyway, you know I sketch you a lot- fucking Marlow made that known, the prick…”

“Marlow’s just tactless. It’s alright if you’re drawing me, you know.” Marco smiled. “I’m kinda flattered.”

“You are?” Jean looked almost pleased at hearing it.

“Yep. Very flattered. But, uh, do you want me to move or something?”

Jean blinked. “W-what do you-?”

“Well, if you’re sketching me, you should choose where I stand, right?” Marco said with a smile.

“Er… uh… r-right, sketching, yeah, uh…” Jean scrambled up from the futon and tucked the pencil behind his ear as he walked closer. He motioned for Marco to stand up as he turned the chair around, chewing on the thin pink of his bottom lip as he did so. “Could you like… straddle the chair?” he asked, still furiously blushing as he directed him back down onto the chair. Marco felt Jean’s fingertips skim his spine with a feather light touch, and he sighed at the heat that pooled to the surface. Once Jean had Marco in the right position, he gave a business-like nod and returned to his perch on the futon, hands slightly shaking. Marco rested his chin on his folded arms, gazing with interest at the way Jean opened up the sketchbook again, turned it one way then the other, and finally started to sketch. “Can I talk?” Marco asked before it could get into the details.

Jean snorted. “Yeah, ‘course. What do you wanna talk about?”

_You. I want to know more about you. I want to know everything._ Marco shook himself. Jean had already revealed parts of his life to Marco that he wouldn’t dare to show to anyone else; he didn’t want to push it. His curiosity could wait. He wet his lips, dragged a hand back through his hair to free it from the ponytail he’d slung it into, and murmured, “Not many people know much about Thomas, you know. No one really asks.”

Jean paused for a second, sighing, before continuing again without looking up. “Aren’t I the privileged one.” He gave a tiny shrug. “And I’m not special. People just don’t know what to say. And it’s best to talk about them- that’s how we remember them, afterall. That’s why I wanna know stuff about him.”

“Don’t you think forgetting about the dead is the best thing?” Marco asked. His words felt hollow. Even he didn’t believe them.

Jean shook his head, still not looking up from his sketch. “Nah. Then you’re pretending they never existed. S’an insult to their memory that way. You can remember them, laugh about them, cry about them. It’s only healthy. That way they don’t really die.” His pencil stopped its scratching for a brief moment, like he was thinking, before he continued, “Some of the stars in the sky are dead now. They’ve been dead hundreds of thousands of years, because that’s how long their light takes to get to us. But because we can still see them, it means they existed. Once that light’s gone, it’s gone forever. I mean, sure, it’ll go in the end, but it gives it a life after death.” He stopped again, and finally looked up. Marco noted that he still didn’t catch his eye. “Thomas was alive- he had bad habits, hopes, dreams. Everyone has ‘em. But once they’re gone, those things start getting forgotten. And that’s sometimes worse than the person dying in the first place.”

Marco watched him intently, propping his chin back on his arms and bit his lip. Jean was right. He was so right. After the funeral, Thomas stopped being a person and became a lost chance, a ‘too bad’ and a sympathetic pat on the back. He stopped being talked about, and whenever his name did come up there were gazes darted to Marco sat in the corner, hasty apologies and changes of subject. Marco hadn’t ever realised just how much he wanted to just _talk_ about Thomas without people turning it into a tragedy. He wanted to talk about the times where they fought for stupid reasons, or the sweet things they did together. He didn’t just want to talk about diagnoses and hospital rooms and heart monitors.

“Do you regret telling me?”

His head jerked up at that. Jean was making eye contact now, his eyes somehow darker behind the glasses. He looked so honest and open, as though he’d noticed how much he’d been talking and wasn’t sure whether that was acceptable or not. It made Marco’s chest clench.

He pursed his lips as the candlelight illuminated Jean’s elegant hands. He let his eyes drift back up to Jean’s, trying to stop them lingering on his lips for too long, before he shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “I don’t regret anything.”

The Adam’s apple in Jean’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, eyes still completely on Marco. He’d stopped sketching. The pencil lay forgotten on the futon, and the only thing tracing Marco’s outlines were those burning eyes. Marco kept his bottom lip clenched between his teeth, willing himself not to blush too obviously at the rush of warmth he felt from Jean’s gaze. It felt like such an intimate thing; Jean’s eyes followed every curve and well of his body, the creases in his clothes, the shape of his lips…

“How did you get your scar, Marco?” he asked, his voice breathless.

Marco reached up to touch the scar on his brow, running a thumb along the disturbed skin. “Ymir,” he answered. “When we first met.” He smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. I gave as good as I got.”

Jean got up from the futon, shifting the sketchbook to one side as he stood, and walked towards him. Marco didn’t move, even when Jean took his chin in his hand and tilted his face to the side so he could see it. Jean’s fingers were cold, but they might as well have been burning for all the good it did to Marco’s composure. Jean’s brows were furrowed, curious as his free hand traced the shape of the scar. “Not surprised,” he said in a low voice, “seeing as you have a death wish.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Marco was surprised as how calm he sounded, considering his heart was pounding against his ribs. “I like living too much.”

He saw Jean’s mouth twitch at the corners. “You’re lucky you didn’t…”

“…Go blind. I know. The nurses told me.” Marco closed his eyes at how gently Jean touched him, the tips of his fingers continuing to skip over his scar, his brow, his cheekbones. It felt like Jean was testing the waters somehow, but Marco couldn’t dare to hope for something like that. “Ymir took me to the hospital. She was good to me.”

He knew Jean wasn’t listening, especially when his fingers vanished from his scar altogether. Marco felt his pulse skip when the delicate fingers began to comb their way into his hair. He tried not to let out a highly inappropriate noise, but it was very difficult. There was a reverence in the way Jean touched him, a tenderness that Marco couldn’t pin down to simple friendship, and whilst one hand was busy the other was caressing dangerously close to his lips. Marco clenched his jaw to stop himself from pressing his lips to those fingers, and when they accidentally snagged on a chunk of hair and tugged, he couldn’t help the small hiss that came from behind gritted teeth. The hands vanished immediately. Marco’s chest throbbed.

He’d snapped the thread. Jean was backing away.

But he was given parting grace by the fingers trailing down his jaw, slow and barely-there, until they were gone and only the heat remained. “W-we should get some sleep,” Jean said, sounding further away than Marco imagined. When he opened his eyes, Jean was back by the futon, throwing more covers and blankets over the length of it to keep warm. “I need to talk to my landlord in the morning, a-and I need to find something for Claudine’s teething.” He didn’t turn around to look at Marco when he threw down a few extra pillows. “And you need to work.”

Marco wanted to tell him. He wanted to say that it was okay, he was allowed to touch him if that was what he wanted. He wanted to stride over to him, wrap his arms around him and tell him not to be scared. He wanted to tell him what he’d known all along.

But he couldn’t. He was a coward. Instead, he just walked over, peeled his jeans off and slipped beneath the covers next to Jean without saying a word. He couldn’t. What could he say?

And as Jean sank into sleep, one arm yanking Marco’s around his middle in a sleep-addled state, Marco thought of what he really needed to say.

_I’m in your pull. I’m in your orbit, and I can’t get out of it._

_I’m sorry._


	14. Everything's Made To Be Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooo it's that time again folks! We got us an SFS update aw yisssss
> 
> This is a whopper of a chapter again- 17k and it nigh on killed me- but I know you guys don't complain.   
> Also wanted to take the opportunity to thank you all SO much for getting this to 20k hits: I don't know what I've done to deserve such wonderful comments, followers and fans of my work but thank you so much for enjoying this and getting as emotionally invested as I am in the babies that are the SFS loves <3 
> 
> In this chapter we have space metaphor upon space metaphor, everyone being adorable and Eren actually doing a good for once...
> 
> My ask box is open on my tumblr so feel free to spam me with anything there as well as in the comments! :D  
> Tumblr: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> Enjoy! :D

One thing Marco found amazing about his friendship with Jean was that they didn’t always have to talk to each other to get their points across. Jean could give him a glance, a motion, a tiny flicker of change on his face, and Marco would know what was meant. It wasn’t something he had been able to notice right away; most of the time Jean was as blunt as they came, and there was no need for guesswork. But in the more vulnerable moments, those moments that no one else saw besides Marco, the chainmail Jean draped over himself fell away. His face became more open, his touches and motions more purposeful, and all Marco could do was try to decode them.

And that decoding took less time than he imagined.

By the time Claudine was teething and Jean was hurting more than before, Marco could read him easily, even in the most guarded of times. Everything was so _close_ , every emotion painted on his skin like the colours on his canvas, and they all read similar things. They sketched reasons why Jean tried to avoid looking at him for too long, or mapped how, when his eyes did falter, they raked over every inch of Marco. The emotions were loud, and brash, and obvious.

And that scared the hell out of Marco.

It was this cowardice that stopped him from talking about what had happened between them. Marco knew it was pointless to bring it up; not only was it obvious, but it would cause unneeded freezing on Jean’s part. Still, he thought it was best to keep his distance. He didn’t want to infringe on Jean’s thoughts any more than he had to. He didn’t want to scare him.

But then he got a phone call the next evening at three in the morning.

“Mm, wha’ issit?” he rumbled into the receiver, still hazy with sleep as he rolled onto his stomach.

“I’m sorry it’s late.” Jean sounded like he’d been running. “Just had to speak to you.”

“Wh-”

“It doesn’t make sense, I know, sorry.” Jean sighed down the phone. “If you want me to go, you can hang up, it… s’okay.”

“Nnnooo.” Marco sat up, running a hand though his hair as the voice finally registered in his sleep-addled brain. “No, it’s alright, what is it?”

Jean kept quiet for a little while, before murmuring a soft, “I dunno, I guess. Can’t sleep.”

“Ngh, speak for yourself,” Marco muttered, scooting up against his headboard to keep himself upright.

To his surprise, Jean just chuckled. It was the tired, strained kind of chuckle that was commonplace once he established a terrible sleeping pattern. It gave something in Marco’s chest a bit of a knock. “Shit, Marco, I’m sorry. Being up all night with Claudine kinda ruins your concept of time.”

Marco instantly felt more awake. “Claudine? Is she okay?” he asked, ready to spring for his clothes or keys.

“She’s fine.” Jean sniffed. Loudly. Was he catching a cold? “The teething’s a bitch. She only just got to sleep, but now… now I can’t sleep.”

“Life’s a bitch.”

“Mmhmm.” There was a soft rustling on Jean’s end that suggested he was curled up on his futon; even if he wasn’t sleeping, he had the right idea. “I started her on pear mush this morning. She threw it on the fuckin’ floor, I think she hates pears.”

Marco rolled his eyes to the ceiling and let a small bout of laughter ripple through him. He’d wanted to _avoid_ this.He’d wanted to _ignore_ this.Did he even have a heart left? Jean didn’t talk to just anyone like this. Maybe he noticed how devoted Marco was to his little girl. Marco cringed. He’d tried not to get attached, but every time Claudine’s name was mentioned he was on high alert, ears sharp for any trouble. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t his responsibility. He had no reason to be worried or concerned about her. But then that strange instinct to protect would kick in the middle of his gut, and Marco let out a breath at the way his chest tightened. _I could be a father_ , he thought as he listened to Jean mutter and gripe about Claudine’s refusal to eat, _…yeah. That’s something I could be._ That wasn’t something he was willing to admit out loud, however- not yet.

Instead, he replied to Jean with sympathetic noises and suggestions for other potential meals, but the majority of the time was spent listening to the boy talk. Every inflection his accent gave gifted a nice little jolt to Marco’s system; each snipped vowel and spiked sentence made him smile and imagine the way Jean’s mouth moved to accommodate those words. He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand after grinning into thin air for twenty full minutes. If his writer’s mind was starting to make Jean’s accent poetic he really _was_ a goner.

After a while the talk fizzled out, but the call didn’t end. Marco was happy to sit on one end of the phone, listening to the occasional snuffling noises Jean made when he moved on the futon. He tried to ignore that urge in the pit of his belly to be there too, that little hook digging in deep. He wondered how much deeper it could go until it hit something vital, something that meant he couldn’t go back. As he looked over at the empty pill pot by the side of his bed, he found himself thinking that maybe he didn’t want to go back. Sure, the pills would be there no matter what, as would the sweats and the side effects and the sicknesses… but there would be some sort of warmth to return to, to nurture gently in his chest. That really didn’t sound that bad.

“Marco?”

“Hmm?” He was jolted from his reverie. “Sorry, you okay?”

“Yeah, fine. You must have spaced out, I was talking for about five minutes and you didn’t interrupt me once.”

“Sorry, it’s just… it’s just late.”

“Yeah, I know. Didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“S’fine. What were you saying?”

“Oh, right, yeah.” He could imagine the way Jean blinked as he tried to backtrack. “Was saying that I gotta wait til I get paid before I get the utilities back online.”

Marco washed a hand over his face with a groan. “Ugh, shit Jean, I’m sorry. My offer still stands, you know. About you staying.”

“I’m not gonna burden you with any more shit that you already have, don’t worry.” Jean’s voice was subdued. “I’ll power through. I got to. Haven’t got much fuckin’ choice.” There was a pause as Jean undoubtedly checked the time, for when his voice returned it was heavier still. “It’s so late, Marco, go to fuckin’ bed, m’keepin’ you up.”

“Psh, don’t worry about keeping me up.” Marco smiled into the gloom. “If it makes you feel less alone, then call me whenever.”

“Really?”

Marco chuckled. “Yes, Jean, really.” He wasn’t going to tell him that it was the first night in a week he hadn’t been interrupted by a rush to the bathroom. “You know you can talk to me whenever.”

“O-oh.”

“Did you not know that?”

“No, I… I guess I did. You just never said it outright like that, you know?”

Marco slithered down the length of his bed with a yawn, surrendering to gravity and his own fatigue. “Well, you know me,” he mumbled, “walking enigma waiting to be solved.”

Jean snorted. “Sure.” He rumbled out an impressive yawn and shifted again so the phone crackled a little. “Might try to sleep. Sprog seems out for the count, wish I could join her.”

Marco frowned. “Jean, maybe you need a bit of time away from Claudine for a little while.”

“What do you mean?” Jean’s voice sharpened.

“Nothing bad! I just mean that being a parent is a big responsibility, but you’re only young. You should be able to go out without her for a little while without feeling guilty about it.” Marco ran a hand through his hair again, cringing at how lank it felt. “You deserve act your age sometimes.”

He knew it wasn’t Jean’s fault. Jean had been thrust into the role of ‘father’ so quickly that his feet hadn’t touched the ground. Everything had changed in a nanosecond, and suddenly that label of ‘father’ overtook his life. He wasn’t ‘Jean’ anymore. He was just ‘father’. He dropped out of university (according to Armin), gave up his job and started painting full time so he could be with Claudine and continue to make money. She was a wonderful, beautiful baby, but Jean was never away from her longer than three hours at a time. Even when he let Marco look after her at the shop, it was rarely ever the entire day, and when it was Jean would charge in looking like he’d sprinted there. He needed time to be himself. He needed time to be a kid again.

“Alright, _O wise one,_ what do you suggest?” Jean asked. Despite the edge to his tone, Marco could pinpoint the hope there.

That was why he suggested the outing.

It was more delicately phrased than what his brain wanted to belch out. “Well, maybe we could just spend the day together,” he said, his voice light as ever despite his fevered pulse in his ears. “We could do whatever you want, go anywhere you wanna go. We could get Christa to look after Claudine- I really think Ymir is warming to her.”

It took a few bouts of silences and sceptical “I dunno”s from Jean before he finally accepted, but Marco could tell there was an excitable edge to the way he asked when they could do it. In all honesty, Marco could have done it the next day and not cared, but he made sure to wait until his next day off to mention it again. Jean called Christa, she reluctantly agreed on babysitting Claudine (fortunately she wouldn’t be working that night either, so it didn’t give them a time limit) and he was happy. Everything would run smoothly.

Until he started to think of just how much it would feel like a date. And then the panic set in.

“Sasha, _help me_ ,” he hissed, standing in front of his crooked wardrobe with the look of a kicked puppy. He’d been standing there for at least half an hour staring at his clothes and hoping against hope that something would just pop out.

Sasha was sat on his bed, one hand on her bump as per usual whilst the other was fully wedged in a packet of vegetable crisps Connie had given her. She popped another crisp into her mouth, crunching thoughtfully, before she pointed something out. “Those black jeans. I stand by my word. You look good in black jeans.”

“His ass _does_ look good in those,” came a disembodied voice from Marco’s phone. Mikasa may not have been there in body, but she was there in spirit. And unhelpful commentary.

“It’s not a _date_ though,” Marco whined to them both, yanking them out of the wardrobe anyway and eyeing them critically. “It’s just getting Jean out of the house without Claudine being there.”

Sasha gave him a knowing grin that only made his ears flush more. “Yeah, like that doesn’t make it sound like less of a date.”

Mikasa’s voice came next. “Marco, does it matter? Jean wouldn’t have agreed to it unless he wanted to spend time with you. It might not mean he wants to date you, necessarily, but try not to let it worry you. You are Jean’s first choice. Aside from Claudine, of course. If the few times I’ve met him are anything to go by, you’re pretty honoured to be included in that list.”

Marco gave an exasperated sigh and spun back on his heel to regard his sorry state of clothes. That may have been true, but there was a small part of him that didn’t want _that_ kind of reassurance. A part of him was hoping that Jean was considering a date- just a little. He quashed that finicky little voice with the weight of the problem at hand, and pulled a shirt off the rack to present to Sasha. “This one?” he asked.

“Is he holding up the Spiderman shirt?” Mikasa asked.

“Yep.”

“No, Marco.”

“Oh, come on, I don’t want to be formal about this!” Marco huffed. “We’re just two guys, hanging out.”

“The most laddish thing I’ve ever heard you say, sweetheart.”

“Quiet, Mikasa.”

“Wear the purple shirt,” Mikasa said without missing a beat. “Not the button up, that one’s a bit too garish and prom-king territory, but the other one.”

“You mean the one that’s a bit too tight and clings to my chest?” Marco deadpanned.

“He might like your manboobs of glory,” Sasha pitched in.

“You are both terrible friends.”

After another bout of playful taunting and arguing amongst them all, Marco was finally convinced to don the black jeans and a dark green jumper thin enough for his leather jacket to fall over. He also put on the Spiderman top before Sasha could complain about it. “So, where are you boys going?” Sasha asked, rocking to her feet as Marco said goodbye to Mikasa and hung up the phone. “Somewhere nice n’ romantic?”

Marco snorted through his nose. “Sasha, _please.”_ When she raised a brow and folded her arms, he admitted, _“_ I have some plans. Non-romantic plans. Platonic plans. And I think Jean will like them. Platonically. Maybe romantically. We’ll see.” He shrugged on his jacket and gave her a pained look. “Don’t smirk like that. I just wanted to do something nice for him.”

“Suuure.”

“I just wanna see him smile, Sash. And I think he will. I _hope_ he will.”

Marco really had given his ‘plan’ a lot of thought. He’d spoken to Armin, who assured him that it was a great idea, and enlisted Marlow’s help to bring it to fruition, but that didn’t sate the butterflies in his stomach. He realised how eager he sounded, like a child going to a theme park, but now the seed of potential datehood was planted in his mind it was starting to grow, downtrodden or not. What he said to Sasha, however sceptically she stared, was true. He just wanted to see Jean happy. That was why he tried. That was why he _always_ tried.

“Aw, look at you, smiling like a nervous teenager,” Sasha winked and reached up to ruffle his hair. “Such a cutie pie.”

“Sash, gerroff me!” Marco chuckled and shook his head away from her wrath, trying his best to flatten it down. “I’m not nervous!”

“Yeah you are- your smiles are super toothy when you think too much about them.” She giggled when Marco clapped a hand to his mouth with a blush and led him into the living space. “You’re too cute to be nervous.”

“I’m not ner-!” The sound of his phone going off made them both jump, Sasha laughing far louder than Marco when he went to answer it.

Jean had dropped Claudine off at Christa’s (he made a point of saying that Ymir was there too- Marco was thankful she hadn’t scared him off leaving his first born with her) and said he’d gone for a walk. “They live close to the cemetery,” he said, and Marco’s heart stopped. “I got curious. Hope you don’t mind that I’m in there.”

“I-it’s not my cemetery, Jean, you can go in there,” he replied, his voice tight.

“I know. I just… thought I’d tell you.”

Marco sighed. He hadn’t told Jean that Thomas was buried there, but Jean wasn’t stupid. He would have figured it out.

“It’s pretty nice here. Quiet. Not too many people. But I, uh, guess you probably won’t wanna stick around. Wondered if you could come get me on your bike.” There was a pause. “Not that I like that hunk of hellbeast that makes you feel like you’re gonna die every fucking minute.”

“Sssshhh, _Jean_ you’re in a cemetery,” Marco chided with a grin. “And don’t insult Bertha.”

“I’m not near any graves right _now_ ,” Jean snorted, but Marco could recognise the smile in his voice. “Oh excuse me, I forgot your inanimate object has a name.”

“Call her Bertha.”

“Day I call it Bertha is the day you can call my easel Phillip.”

It gave Marco the little push he needed to get out the door. After having to go through the motions of Sasha clinging to him and slipping a bottle of lube into his back pocket (making Marco gabble away in rage and embarrassment), he was released into the crisp air of the Trost spring. It was trying to give way to summer, but wasn’t quite relinquishing its chokehold on the city. However, the milder weather meant that Bertha worked without coughing out a belly of acrid smoke before Marco kicked her into the right gear.

The travel to the cemetery was practiced, Marco tracing the imaginary marks left by his frequent visits. He’d been expecting Jean to be waiting outside the gates, but frowned when there was no one to be found. He leant Bertha against the best part of crumbling wall, a rush of déjà vu shooting through him as he peered through the iron curls separating him from the world inside. He texted a small question mark to let Jean know he’d arrived, but the response he got made his stomach turn.

**From: Jean  
_I found him._**

Marco couldn’t help the rush of panic and protection that shot through his system. The knee-jerk reaction winded him. He was thrust into a state of wanting to bolt and wanting to tell Jean he had no right to go looking for things that didn’t concern him, thanks to his churning stomach and racing pulse. But then he stopped. Thomas _did_ concern Jean. He knew things not many others did, however trivial they were, and he wasn’t running from it. He wasn’t backing away and saying it wasn’t his problem, that Marco had to face it on his own. He tried for Marco too, but in a different way _._ That was what made Marco chain Bertha to the same railing he’d used before, his heart heavy but mind burning. He had to admit, he was curious. And when it came to the ‘curiosity killed the cat’ saying, Marco was most definitely the cat.

He took the path up to where Thomas was cautiously, stepping over the neglected graves with that overwhelming physical sadness cemeteries just seemed to emit. It was like it oozed from every pore, darkening the sky and thoughts of the living all at the same time. The grass was thinner now, he noticed. The ageing groundskeeper was clearly continuing his struggle with the vegetation despite his sciatica, but it made Jean’s shape ahead far easier to spot, so Marco couldn’t criticise the old man’s priorities too much.

Jean was facing away from him, eyes obviously fixed on the marble stone in front of him, and Marco noticed how his hands were shoved in his pockets as normal. Some things never changed. Things like galaxies changed all the time, growing bigger and vaster and brighter. But some things remained constant. Even though Jean had been thrust into his life somewhat unexpectedly, Marco wasn’t sure if he could ever be without this constant. Jean would change, sure, grow most certainly, but his presence was something Marco never wanted to change, platonic or no. He had his head bowed at the grave, a sign of respect Marco felt his heart falter at, but he wasn’t yet close enough to see exactly what he was doing. Still, the fact that Jean was facing the headstone made it easier for Marco to sneak up. He slowed his pace as he neared Jean in case the boy took off like a frightened animal. He expected him to turn around, his sharp hearing usually on point when he was alone. What he didn’t expect to hear at that precise moment was Jean _talking_.

“Look, I don’t know much about you, so I guess there’s no point in paying respects- or whatever. Not properly. I mean, I know the routine, but it wouldn’t feel right, y’know? Even if I know that you were an atrocious guitar player and your feet smelled really fuckin’ bad. And you had a really messed up taste in sandwich spreads. A-anyway, don’t get mad about that and possess my ass alright cus I ain’t for that game.” Jean let out a short laugh.

“A-anyway, you didn’t even meet me, probably thinking why the hell this fucking scarecrow of a randomer is stood here talking to you, right? Know I’d be.” His voice was solemn, and so quiet that Marco had to strain to hear it. “Guess I’m here to say that Marco… he’s doing good. I know you’d wanna hear that. If you can hear. He’s your boy after all, right? You’d want him to be doing okay. And he is, I think… at least, I hope he is, or the guy’s a good actor. He’s… he’s helping me you see, and…” His voice trailed off like he was scrambling for the right train of thought in the crowded station of his mind. “He’s just really helped me, fuck, you got no idea. I mean, I’m still scared of shit, but he’s… he’s good. And I think he got that goodness from you. So, thanks.”

Marco was forced to clap a hand over his mouth to stop the whimper wheedling out of his lips. His eyes were itching with the promise of tears, but he fought them back. The closer he got, the more he saw how Jean’s shoulders were drawn up to his ears to stave off the breeze blowing through the cemetery, but also noticed how steady they were. For the first time, Jean didn’t look like a lost little boy stood on his own. He looked… _strong,_ almost. When had that happened? And he was talking to _Thomas_ , thanking him even though he’d only ever seen his face in faded photographs in a dusty album. He spoke like Thomas was a person, not a memory, and still tripped over his words like Thomas was stood there with him, smiling and patient and willing him on. Marco took another step.

“Just thought you should know Marco’s being looked after, too. He’s got his friends around him, even that little shit Eren you know (Marco had to stifle a tearful snort at that) and…” Jean paused. “And he’s got me. If…if he wants me.”

“I do.”

The words tumbled out of Marco’s mouth before he could stop them. He wanted to grab them and shove them back in, but the moment was gone. Jean spun around with wild eyes and blazing cheeks, almost losing his balance in the severity of his turn. “Woah, hey, easy!” Marco cried, letting out a laugh. _Yeah, laugh it off, Bodt. Laugh it off so he doesn’t realise how much you want to cry right now._ “Didn’t mean to scare you!”

“You fucking snuck up on me, what else did you think you would fucking do?!” Jean squawked. He then looked back at the grave. “Didn’t mean to swear,” he added. Then he paused. “Wait, fuck, I’ve been swearing a _lot._ Shit.”

It was then that Marco took in what Jean was wearing. His jeans still had holes and paint flecks on them, but his woolly jumper looked new. A chunky petrol blue colour, it seemed a size too big for him as it hung down far past his hips, but looked warm. And a weird kind of flattering. _Too_ much of a weird kind of flattering _. Shut up, brain._

Jean’s brow cocked, and Marco realised he’d been staring. He shook himself and gave a small frown in response. “It’s okay, I don’t think Thomas would mind,” he said, “though it’s nice that you think of him.”

Jean shrugged. “There might be some part of him listening. S’only polite.”

Marco bit back a smile and took a step closer, looking over to the headstone. For the first time, he wasn’t winded by a sadness that wanted to crush him. It fluttered in his chest, sure, but as he crouched down to read the words he’d read a thousand times, it didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Jean stayed quiet, respecting the time Marco spent tracing the carved letters with a thumb and letting the ghosts of smiles pass him by.

He hadn’t ever felt close to Thomas like this. He tried talking to him before, in the early days when the mourners had gone and left him on his own with Hyacinth and Eren, but it made things worse. Knowing that he could shout as loud as he wanted and he wouldn’t ever hear Thomas reply broke open the raw wounds and rendered him incapable of anything except feral howls and sobs. The early days were ones he tried to forget. He hadn’t tried talking to him again. And the longer he’d left it, the colder the grave got. Now, it felt warm again. Marco let his eyes close and sucked in a brave breath. He wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t need to. “Y-you hear that? If you’re listening, you wouldn’t be annoyed at a little cursing, right?” He paused, biting the inside of his cheek when the usual silence filled the void. “Th-thought not,” he said. “G-getting acquainted with Jean, have you? He’s not as much of a doofus as he sounds.”

“Hey.”

Marco let a weak laugh break through. “Alright, alright, he’s much better than he comes across.”

“Dunno whether to be flattered or insulted by that,” Jean grumbled behind him. A beat of silence rested between them before he spoke up. “I wish I could’ve met him. Properly, I mean.”

When Marco straightened up, he was smiling. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Jean frowned and took a step closer when he realised Marco wasn’t going to tell him off. He stared down at the grave and bit his lip. “From all the stories you tell, I can guess he was a good guy.”

Marco kept his smile without having to force it. “He was,” he replied. “He was… the most ‘good’ a person could be.”

“He was bound to be,” Jean agreed, “seeing as he got you falling in love with him.”

Marco twitched. When he turned to look at Jean, he was being vehemently ignored. Jean refused to catch his eye, instead looking down at the grave with a clenched jaw and furrowed brows. Marco let out a small sigh and kept his gaze soft. Did Jean really think that? Only the good people got to be loved? The wind picked up, buffeting Jean’s jumper and causing a shiver to ripple through him. He was still strong, Marco thought, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be sad. Jean needed to know that no one was perfect; Thomas had his faults, like anyone, and that didn’t stop him from being well-liked. Jean seemed to think that he was so full of flaws that he drove people away. Made them sick. Every breed of self-doubt was flapping its skeletal wings in the pit of Jean’s stomach, and he just wanted them settled.

Marco took another step to brush their hands together. When he got no reaction, he let his hand hang limp by his side in an open invitation, and smiled when Jean’s eyes wandered to it. It didn’t take long before their fingers were threaded through one another’s and Jean was looking at him. “He fell in love right back, you know,” Marco said, his voice hushed. “And trust me, I was more of a mess back then than I am now. I was younger, Jean, and stupid. I was scared and confused, and… he loved me regardless.”

Jean looked like he was going to argue back, but thought better of it and squeezed his hand in reply. Marco wasn’t sure if Jean knew how much he was holding back being honest, but by the way his eyes flew back to the ground he suspected he did. “Some people can’t be loved. Just the way it is,” Jean sniffed.

“You really believe that?”

Jean’s eyes were back on his, piercing and thoughtful, and Marco gulped at the stardust collecting in them. Everything felt thick between them: the air, the sky, the ground, the breath coming from their lungs in tiny, cloud-like puffs. Marco knew what tension felt like, and he knew that the world around them was charged with it. But then he shook himself, and tugged on Jean’s hand. “Come on. This is a day for you. What do you want to do?”

Jean chewed on his lip, looking from the grave to Marco and back again as if he wanted to somehow pick the remnant of Thomas up and carry it with them. “I dunno,” he said after a moment. “I thought we could, uh, get some food later. And sit in somewhere. Like a restaurant or something. Not done that in a while.”

_A restaurant. Jean wanted to go for dinner at a **restaurant**. If that didn’t sound like a date… _ Marco mercilessly shoved those thoughts aside and smiled, prompting him on. “Anything else? Do you wanna go… paint somewhere or maybe go to the park or-”

“The park sounds good.” Jean dared to flash a smile up at him, a nervous kind of smile Marco hadn’t seen on Jean, and his stomach flipped over. “I like the park. Not too many people.”

Marco grinned. “Park it is. C’mon.” He gave another small tug.

“H-hold on.” Jean let his hand slip from Marco’s grasp and laid it on the headstone, twitching a little at how cold it had become. “Heading off now, alright Thomas? Thanks for listening to me ramble on an’ shit. Probably talked your ear off.” He glanced back at Marco before mumbling something to the air Marco couldn’t catch and patting the top of the headstone like he was playfully tapping someone on the head. “Bye, Thomas. Don’t be a stranger, now,” he said, letting a small smile slip free. Marco was forced to violently blink to keep the tears at bay.

Once Jean walked back to him, he looked over his head to where the headstone remained, silent and cold, and murmured a soft, “Bye, love,” to it before heading back down the hill, keeping one hand shoved deep in his pocket and the other available for Jean to grab should he want to.

If Jean had something to say about Marco’s discomfort, he didn’t voice it. The next thing he said, with a wrinkled nose as they reached the bottom and Bertha was unchained, was, “you better have another fuckin’ helmet.”

Marco shook his head. “Nah, it’s alright, you take it. I’ve never been in an accident yet.”

“Marco Bodt touch wood right now, that’s exactly what fate _wants_ to hear!”

“It’s fine, Jean.”

“NO IT ISN’T.”

He convinced Jean to take the helmet- eventually. When Jean swung his leg over the bike this time, grumbling about the lack of health and safety bullshit, there wasn’t a hint of hesitation. Jean didn’t even have to wait to be asked how he wanted to sit; he shuffled closer to Marco and wrapped his arms around his waist without a word, though Marco was sure he caught a strangled squeak when he kicked Bertha into life. Jean had him in a vice like grip as they set off, Bertha making tired little clunking sounds every few feet once they dived into the Trost traffic, but as they bobbed and weaved between the traffic Jean started to relax. The arms constricting his ribs were softer now, and shifted down a little to keep them steady. At least Marco could breathe properly again. He turned his head to Jean as they waited at a red light, and asked, “Do you wanna go faster?”

Jean hesitated, and then the helmet nodded vigorously.

“You sure?”

Another nod.

Marco grinned. “Alright then, hold on tight.”

When the lights turned, Marco slammed Bertha into a higher gear and pulled away quicker than the idling cars, revving as he went to clear her pipes. The crushing grip was back, making Marco choke as he swung between the cars and vans holding them up, but he could also feel the heavy plastic of Jean’s helmet resting between his shoulder blades. It made it difficult to concentrate, especially when he felt Jean squeeze him a little as they rounded a corner. Marco smirked when he turned Bertha down a sidestreet and saw the distinct lack of cars. “Faster?” he asked over his shoulder. He heard a gleeful yell that sounded a lot like, “FLOOR IT,” so floor it he did.

Bertha whined at the treatment but shot forwards, cutting off Jean’s undecipherable holler as they flew down the stretch of road, passers by stopping and staring at the way Marco was laughing and Jean was screaming. Marco had a kind of giddy joy hit him as they skidded around the next corner, tires squealing as they tried to find traction on the damp ground, and realised that he could ride like this for hours if it meant having Jean so unapologetically close to him.

Unfortunately, the sign for the park loomed up too soon. Marco noticed how, after he finally cut the ignition and kicked out the stand, Jean’s touch lingered on his waist far softer than it had done before.

He wasn’t sure what Jean wanted to do in the park, but it turned out he’d come prepared. After a few insistent tugs on Marco’s sleeve to lead him over to the bruised looking fountain in its centre, Jean pressed a very solid weight into the middle of Marco’s chest. Marco blinked when he took it from Jean’s less steady hands. “This is…”

“ _The Great Gatsby._ Yeah. So now you can be educated, you uncultured swine.” Jean gave a smile that was more like a twitch as he rifled through his bag for something else.

“Jean…” Marco gazed down at the book. It looked… _pristine._ It was as though it had never been touched, or if it had it was done with a great deal of care. Jean was biting down on his lip as he looked through his bag, trying to keep his eyes away from Marco’s face. “This isn’t your study copy,” he mumbled.

“Then you better take good care of it,” Jean said, flashing him a nervous smile when he dared to catch his eye.

Marco swallowed painfully, turning the book over in his hands and feeling the sturdiness of a leather that hadn’t been treated. Jean told him things in little hints, small reminders that were dropped like crumbs of bread whenever they were together, and as Marco opened the book to find a small inscription to Jean and signed ‘ _Gram_ ’ in a gentle, curving script, his heart started to gallop in his chest. This meant a lot to Jean. Shit, it probably meant the _world_ to him. When their eyes met again, Jean had his glasses on and a sheepish smile. “Don’t look at me like that, I trust you. I thought you’d get bored. I wanted to… well…” He gestured to the sketchbook in his lap.

Marco chuckled, chasing away the blush that wanted to worm its way to the surface. “I thought you weren’t gonna work today.”

Jean shrugged helplessly. “S’not really work. Was just gonna do whatever I wanted.” He looked around the meagre selection of people making use of the greener spaces and pointed to a particularly decrepit old lady. “Someone like her, for example. Good figure work.”

Marco smiled and patted the cover of the book gently. “Better get to reading then, if you plan to be here for a while.”

“That a problem?”

Marco tried not to stare for too long at the earnest expression behind the glasses, the hand that moved up to run through his already messy hair and his reddening lips from where they’d been bitten. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not a problem at all.”

Both of them then ducked their heads to their respective pages, trying to hide the blushes that quickly filled both cheeks.

They sat there for a while, Jean shifting so he was sat cross-legged and sketching furiously, and Marco tried to fall into the world Jean had handed to him. He lost track of how long they sat there, the hours stretching thin beneath the scratches of graphite and the flick of pages, but all he knew was that he definitely wasn’t paying attention to his book. His hammering heart was interrupting every line, jolting him into reading the whole sentence again before giving up and moving onto the next, and it was all because of the boy sat beside him, eyes soft behind half-broken glasses. Sure, it wasn’t the fun-filled energy-packed adventure Marco had in mind, but it was still nice. _Yeah,_ he grinned to himself when Jean spared him a warm glance, _still nice._

Jean was the one who decided to leave, muttering that he’d done enough art for one day and his stomach was going to eat itself. He led the way back to the bike, Marco tucking his book under his arm to keep it safe, before he paused and turned around. “You don’t know where we’re going for food, do you?” Jean said.

“No. Where did you have in mind?”

“Well, there’s this café restaurant place Armin suggested. Said it did amazing omelettes, he knows the owner so we’d get it cheap.” Jean shrugged. “I thought it’d make a good chance from kettle noodles and cardboard pizza.”

Marco cringed. “Eesh, kettle noodles huh?”

“It’s been dark times, Marco. Dark times.”

He laughed as they made their way back to the bike. “Sure, sounds good to me. How far away is it?”

“Uh, not that far. You could probably just… walk to it from here. It’s only on the other side of the park.”

Marco stopped at that. The grin he gave Jean made him falter a little. “The other side of the park, you say?”

Jean snorted. “Oh hell no, you can’t charge through it now, they know your face.”

“Spoilsport.”

They wheeled Bertha through the park, barely holding back their childish giggles as a policeman on break gave them a suspiciously long look. Jean nodded his head to him and muttered a ‘good evenin’ officer, got one for the slammer here’ and got a rather strong whack from Marco. He didn’t really care; it was nice to see Jean so relaxed, so quick to laugh and easy to joke. It wasn’t the Jean he was used to, but a Jean he wanted to see more of.

The restaurant was humble enough, red and cheery on the outside and understated and slapdash on the inside. It looked made up in a hurry, but as Marco stepped through the door and properly looked around, he realised just how many of the diners were-

“Can I help you?”

His attention snapped back to a man barely up to his chest scowling at them like they smelt particularly ripe. He was holding back a sneer with little success, but there was a flash in his cold eyes that reminded Marco of someone not to be messed with. He was dressed smartly, too smart to be a customer that was for sure. Maybe he was the owner? Before Marco could open his mouth, Jean blurted out, “We’re friends of Armin’s,” in a single rush of breath. Marco turned to look at him. The strain to Jean’s voice was back, but he wasn’t surprised- anyone would be a little unnerved in the presence of such a surly looking individual.

Immediately, the scowl became real. “For fuck’s sake,” he hissed, folding his arms. “Has Arlert been running around the entire fucking city blabbing his mouth?” Now the clipped professional tone was gone, Marco definitely caught the bite of Russian between the vowels. “I’ve had this friend of Armin’s, that friend of Armin’s, Armin’s second cousin twice removed and their dog in this place.”

“Maybe you should charge less, then.”

“Watch it, mop head.”

“Look, if you don’t want us here, we’ll leave,” Jean snapped. Marco glanced at him with concern. Jean’s cheeks were red as he shuffled his weight from foot to foot, casting a longing yet shameful glance into the warmth of the restaurant. His defences were rising up again, the fear of being judged setting in.

The man took notice. He heaved out an irritable sigh. “Fine, fine, pick a table. Ones at the back are free. We got booths at the sides too if you want privacy.” He gave the both of them a strange look, and handed them a menu made out of scrapbook card. “Knock yourselves out.” He strode away after that, muttering something like, “owes me a shit-ton of money for this”. Marco raised his brows at Jean, but didn’t hesitate further in case the owner changed his mind.

They decided to take one of the tables at the back and along the wall so Jean couldn’t feel exposed, but as they sat down and let their eyes flicker over their fellow diners, the feeling came back. That strange, niggling feeling that-

“Marco, you noticed something?” Jean asked.

“What?”

“Everyone in here looks like they’re on a date.”

_Ah. So Jean **had** noticed. _“Wanna go somewhere else?” Marco asked, picking up his fork and twirling it between his fingers to stop them from shaking.

“Nah. That guy made enough fuss. Might as well stay here.” Jean shrugged. “Besides, I guess to anyone on the outside, we could be on a date.”

Marco dropped the fork.

Jean laughed as he dived for it, blushing crimson, but when Marco resurfaced he saw that Jean was looking a little sheepish too. He was rifling a hand through his hair again, giving it a few tiny tugs, and decidedly looking all around the restaurant in a bid to change the subject. Marco scooted a little closer to the table, unable to help himself when he said, red-faced and grinning, “Fine, if we’re going with that… Hello, Marco Bodt at your service. Babbling, broke idiot desperate for love. Gemini, twenty four and I do think I believe in love at first sight.”

Jean snorted out a laugh at that, clapping a hand to his face in horror at the noise that escaped him. He ended up rocking back in his chair to escape Marco’s own giggles that spilled out of his mouth to ruin the illusion even further. They well and truly caught the giggles after that; every time Marco thought he was better, that the moment had passed, all he had to do was look at Jean and watch him bat his eyelids and that was it. He was off all over again. Jean had such a light laugh when he wasn’t thinking about it, the noise making Marco’s chest swell with pride at being the culprit of such giddiness for the boy who barely _smiled_ without thinking it through first. His laughter got even stronger after Jean managed to splutter out a reply, “J-Jean Kirschtein, fucking loser. I definitely think soulmates are a thing, and… _fuck_ I think I’m a sheep?”

They were still rocking with laughter when the man, now identified as ‘Levi’ by his name badge strode over and asked if they knew what they were having yet. Jean pointed at Marco and said he wanted him ‘to go’ before doubling over with laughter. Levi’s gaze flicked lazily over to Marco without even cracking a smile. “And you?”

They eventually managed to order without splitting their sides, and once Levi left muttering something about “fuckin’ first dates” it only made them roar louder. Once the laughter finally died down and Marco was forced to wipe tears away from his eyes, Jean said, “but seriously Marco, I didn’t know it was gonna be full of couples. If I’d have known-”

“Psh, as if I’ll care about that. Me and Mikasa have been going to the same restaurant for years and they _still_ think we’re together.”

“Cute. No talking about exes on dates.”

Marco smacked his arm with the menu.

However much they jeered and scoffed at the idea of dates and anything resembling romance, Marco could see the way Jean’s laughter got a little higher to bridge the silence, and when the silence did come it contained a lot of averted eyes and awkward neck scratching. Maybe this was all down to nerves. Maybe this was what Jean wanted all along. Marco sighed and took a sip of his (free) water. He could indulge. Just for a little bit. Couldn’t he?

Once they spoke, however, they spoke a lot. They started to talk a little more seriously; mainly about Jean’s latest commissions and how he was getting on with weaning Claudine off the bottle. Marco just liked letting Jean talk. It didn’t seem as though many people had let Jean _just talk_ in his life, and as a result of that Jean’s speech was always frantic, jumbled, as though it was trying to race out of his mouth to get out in the air first before he was silenced. Marco just smiled, gave encouraging little nods and replied in all the right ways, popping a bit of food into his mouth every now and again. Turned out Jean really did like omelettes; the specimen presented to him was about as large as his face, but was demolished within about thirty seconds. The plate was still warm when Jean was carefully cleaning his mouth with the napkin and requesting the dessert menu. Marco just chuckled.

“You know,” he said after a lull in the conversation, “if someone had told me when we first met that I’d be sat with you eating an overpriced omelette, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

“Really?”

“Well, I was pretty convinced you hated me for quite a while.”

Jean gave him a sheepish kind of grin that made his stomach tumbleturn for the umpteenth time that day. “Well, I’m a dick,” he replied. “It’s a well-known fact.”

“No, it wasn’t that,” Marco said, shaking his head. “You couldn’t be a dick if your life depended on it. I’ve told you that before.”

Jean raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You’re not a dick, Jean. You care too much.” Marco smiled. “You tried to act like you didn’t back then, but I saw right through you.” When Jean kept his eyes on his empty plate, Marco dared to push a little more. “Sometimes, if someone puts on an act for too long, they’ll start believing it. I don’t think you’ve changed, Jean- you’re just more _you_ than before. The real you.” He made sure to put a chunk of food in his mouth to stop himself from saying anything else.

“And you wanna see the real me?” Jean asked. He didn’t sound surprised. He’d dropped that confusion long ago, Marco realised, ever since New Year’s Eve. But there was still a hint of doubt, a lingering in the corners of his question that made Marco pause. Before he could respond, though, Jean smiled.

_Ohhh don’t smile like that._

Marco tried not to choke on his mouthful of food, and offered a nervous smile in return. “I’m already seeing it.”

“And you like it?”

“Yeah,” he replied, blunt and honest. He saw Jean blink rapidly, and cleared his throat. “The real you is… is quite something.”

Jean reached over and took a chunk of tomato from Marco’s plate, popping it in his mouth thoughtfully. “You ain’t too bad y’self,” he mumbled through his mouthful.

“Huh?”

“You heard.” Jean’s eyes flickered up to him for a fraction of a second, before glancing away. “I… I judge people before I get to know them half the time. For some reason something kept pulling me back to you. Thought it was just curiosity, for a bit. Still not sure what it was, and I _still_ haven’t figured you out like I said I would. And, well… m’glad.” Jean had a hand in his hair again. “Cus, y’know, there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye. And you bein’ more than just a guy who saves people is better than any fuckin’ superhero anyone likens you too.” Jean was flushing dark now, his fingers playing with the buzzed part of his undercut as he talked, and Marco was sure he probably looked just as awkward. Stunned was probably another adjective he’d slot in there too. “Should have known I was in for it when you jumped into that fuckin’ dank-ass river for me,” Jean finished, grabbing for his glass of water and gulping it down.

Marco was still blushing. He tried to stop his eyes from going so wide, and his hands from rubbing the back of his neck like he was awkward, but it was hard not to when Jean was muttering something unintelligible into his glass. Those warm little feelings that were bubbling around his stomach were overriding the usual cold reality of his pills and his grief, and he was feeling selfish enough to let them stay there.

He looked up from his plate and blinked slowly, trying to take in the awkward mass of Jean that was trying to scrape a new subject off the corner of his brain, and bit his lip. “Jean?”

The tawny eyes flew to him in an instant. The look on Jean’s face seemed almost eager. “Yeah?”

Marco kept biting his lip as he leaned forward. To his surprise, Jean did the same. It was like they were children sharing a secret in a school playground, Jean staring in one part confusion and one part hope and Marco’s pulse throbbing against his ribcage and his traitorous blood pumping faster than he was used to…

And then he stopped biting his lip.

“Jean, I don’t ever regret diving in that river,” he breathed.

Jean’s eyes widened slowly, like he had just worked out the answer to a painfully hard question. Marco’s pulse was roaring in his ears, wondering if maybe he’d gone too far, given away too much; the way Jean froze in place like a statue made the worry grow further. Something had collided inside him with the way Jean stared, eyes blown wide like small explosions, and Marco found himself holding his breath. _Oh God, he’d done it. He’d really gone and done it this time._ Jean was giving him the same look he recognised from the night at his house, under the candles. His pulse hammered harder. The pale pink of Jean’s tongue darted out as he wetted his lips. Marco waited.

“M-Marco…” he began.

But then, the door opened.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the fun has arrived!”

Marco froze. _No. Nonononono. Please no._ But, too late, he turned around and caught the eye of the exact person he didn’t want to come tumbling into the restaurant.

He groaned in horror.

Eren looked _delighted._

“Ayyy Armin, look who it is!” he cried gleefully, pointing at Marco with the biggest shit-eating grin the world had ever known.

Marco wanted the ground to swallow him up. Jean looked faint.

“No!” The man called Levi demanded, stepping in before the designated waiter greeting them had time to hand them menus, “you are NOT coming in here again, I told you before! You sit here for hours and never buy anything!”

“I bought a coffee!”

“YOU DIDN’T PAY FOR IT.”

“Levi, let me handle this…”

“I don’t give a shit if he’s your fucking boyfriend or a patient Arlert, he’s not coming in!” There was a pause. “And who the fuck are all _you_ people?”

Marco’s eyes widened. _There were more?_ He really did turn around then, and saw that not only Eren and Armin were there, but Sasha and Connie were poking their heads around the door with identical beaming smiles. He was pretty sure he could even see Marlow in profile talking to someone next to him with a pinched expression. He turned back to Jean and cringed. “the whole family’s turned up.”

“ _What_?!” Jean stood up out of his seat to see, and immediately got the attention of Sasha.

“We’re with him!” she squealed, and with that the entire group burst through the doors; Eren and Armin, Sasha and Connie, Marlow and…

“Mikasa too?” Marco whined, slumping on the table. “Fucking _hell,_ it’s all of them.”

Eren bounded over to him like a flamboyant gazelle and flung his arms all over him, rubbing his face against his with a warm, “Maaaaarcoooo,” of greeting.

“Get off!” Marco hissed, batting him away. “What are you _doing_ here?” he asked. It sounded a lot like a plead, but the longer Eren stood there, the further away Jean was levering himself. He had been so content, too, so talkative and jokey and…w-warm…

“Impromptu ‘we’re so broke’ party, complete with free food. Also I’m about eighty percent sure Mrs Presnutt popped ‘er clogs last night, so it’s also a ‘welcoming to hell’ party.” Eren grinned. “We did invite you, but Sasha said you were busy.” Eren avoided the kick Marco sent him under the table and fixed his gaze on Jean. “Oooh, it’s _this_ kinda busy huh? We interrupting something here, Casanova?”

“Fuck off, Eren,” Jean muttered, shrinking further away from the table the longer Eren leered at him.

“Cute, Jean, real cute. I do hope you can handle someone like Marco. Trust me, being friends with him… I know things.” Eren’s brows wiggled in that irritating way that made it impossible for Marco to hate him. “Like, _par example,_ how you can hear him orgasm from five blocks awa-”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Armin said, rushing over with a look of utter distress on his face. “I didn’t realise you were going to be here, Jean! I wouldn’t have brought them all here if I didn’t-”

“It’s fine, Armin,” Jean said through gritted teeth, lip curled like a feral dog in response to Eren’s lazy smirk. “You could’ve given me some warning.”

Eren winked and licked a wet stripe up Marco’s cheek before bounding away to help move a number of tables together, deaf to Marco’s loud protests and scrubbing against his sleeve. Armin clapped a hand to his face and let out a groan. “Ugh, for goodness’ sake. You wouldn’t think he was having a bad day today, would you?”

Marco stopped wiping his cheek clean of Eren’s saliva. His stomach, in fact, decided to clench in a mixture of panic and guilt. He should have been there for Eren. He was the one Eren came to when he needed comfort- Marco had shouldered the responsibility back in university, when Thomas was still alive and they were both there to make sure Eren was okay. After Thomas was gone, Marco was on his own, ready to comfort and guide if necessary. Now Eren wasn’t coming to him at all? “What happened?” he asked, immediately on edge.

Armin put up a hand. “It’s not too bad, honestly, I managed to calm him down. I just… think the treatment’s working too well. The medication’s really taking its toll on him. His body thermometer is well and truly broken by this point: he just got a little low. He couldn’t stop shaking this morning when he came to see me.” Marco felt a stab of regret. He should have checked on him. Armin’s face brightened considerably, however, when they overheard Eren in the midst of a tug of war with Levi for a table, the colourful language spewing from his mouth enough to wrangle out a blush and an ‘oh my’ from Armin. “S-seems like the promise of free food cheered him up though. My bank account is not going to thank me for this,” he sighed.

Marco shared a look with Jean. It was hard to stay mad at Armin. Everything he did was done to make someone else happy. He did it all because he cared. His heart was large enough to accommodate anyone who happened to fall into it, and it didn’t take a genius to see just how much Eren had taken up. He had well and truly taken a running dive into Armin’s centre, and it showed.

Jean was the one who spoke next, to Marco’s surprise. “You have to tell him, Armin,” he said, eyes darting from his friend to the boy carrying a table away with a triumphant grin whilst Levi plotted murder. Marco tried not to look surprised. Jean wasn’t the biggest romantic by any means, but the way he looked back at Armin was soft- softer than he’d seen him before.

Armin, to Marco’s confusion, chuckled. “Oh, I couldn’t be more obvious if I tried,” he said, offering Jean a weak smile. “He knows.”

Marco could see it. Eren’s gaze kept gliding over to where Armin stood, and his strides became more practiced and deliberate afterwards, his motions embarrassed and shy. Armin’s eyes were warm every time they landed on Eren, those clinically friendly gazes he was so good at morphing into a silent yearning that pulled heartfelt sighs from his chest. Yes, he was obvious, but attraction looked good on Armin. He was more… alive, somehow. Marco found himself wondering if that was what he looked like to those on the outskirts of their little universe- and couldn’t help glancing at Jean.

Armin, to Marco’s horror, seemed to put two and two together. He offered a small smile- of understanding or sympathy Marco wasn’t sure- and said, “Sometimes admitting things takes a lot of courage, though, even if those things are right in front of us. I don’t mind being obvious, so long as the person I’m being obvious for notices.” He huffed out a small sigh. “And he’s getting there. _He’s_ about as obvious as a foghorn.”

Marco gave a small nod and a chuckle, knowing the words were intended for him as well as a response. Armin gave him another smile and clapped a hand to Jean’s shoulder, tearing his gaze away for the moment. “You two don’t fancy joining us, do you? I’m paying the bill- and regretting it, probably,” he laughed.

Marco looked to Jean. “What do you think? It’s all about you today.” He bit his tongue at how couple-y that sounded.

Jean didn’t notice. He shook his head. “Nah, s’not about me.” He leaned over and tried a slightly brave, shaky pat to the side of Marco’s face, his hand gone before Marco could pretend it lingered. “Wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for you, Ponytail. Today’s for _us_.”

The word slammed between Marco’s ribs like a bullet, lodging very nicely beside his thudding heart and reverberating over and over in his head. Such a simple word shouldn’t have floored him so much, and made him feel so light. It definitely shouldn’t have made him want to use it over and over again, either.

_Us. Our. We._

He tried to bite back how wonderful that sounded.

Armin was beaming at them when Marco came to his senses. He realised he’d been grinning like a lovestruck teenager for the past minute, and let it slip off his face with a clearing of his throat. For half a second, Jean mirrored his shy smile. But then he stood up, clearing his lungs with a cough. “G-guess we should go over. Sasha looks rabid, I don’t wanna fuck with that,” he said.

Jean’s second act of bravery that night was offering his hand to Marco. He wasn’t avoiding his eye this time. He was looking right at him, fingers trembling slightly to betray his nerves. Marco could only stare at him. He was being so brave. Was this Armin’s doing? “C’mon,” Jean prompted, poking Marco’s chest, “I’m sure your magnificent ex and sexually frustrated idiot are gagging for your company.”

Marco let out a scoff at that, but took his hand regardless. Jean’s fingers twitched at the contact, but relaxed the instant Marco stood, a tiny puff of air rushing from his lungs like he couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten away with it. Still, he didn’t let go. Armin gave Marco a wink over Jean’s shoulder (to Marco’s embarrassment) and went to pacify Eren, who was chanting “wine and beer, wine and beer,” at an obnoxious volume. Marco let out a small laugh. “Honestly, Eren’s such a pain in the ass.”

“You put up with him,” Jean pointed out.

“Kinda didn’t have a choice. Meeting Eren was kind of like having a shotgun wedding- no one knows what’s going on, everything moves too fast and there’s a lot of drink involved,” he joked. 

His eyes wandered down to their hands, and smiled at how Jean’s looked so snug entangled in his work-roughened ones. The shakes were subsiding now, Jean’s pulse no longer rushing at the prospect of more people and noise, and now their connection felt natural. Like they fitted. Almost as though Jean was aware of it too, he swung their hands together with a shy grin like a child, and Marco’s heart melted all over again. He remembered how he’d not been able to deny how attractive he found Jean, even way back when he saw him with those faceless friends on the other side of the road, and how he tried not to be scared of what it could mean.

With another tiny little swing, Marco realised that he was doomed since the beginning. Their worlds had already begun spinning around one another, and there really was no going back.

“Jesus, if I thought saying ‘us’ would make you shit yourself so bad, I wouldn’t have said it,” Jean said, biting his lip around a smile as he watched the way their hands moved together.

Marco gulped. “S-sorry, I’m… uh… just a dork. Can’t help it.”

“Didn’t say it was a bad thing.” Jean squeezed their hands together, his grip weaker than Marco’s but just as real, before walking to the constructed long table. Their connection only dropped when Sasha let out a squeal of delight that made him jump and Connie begged Jean to sit next to him to save him from the crazed pregnancy hormones. So, with little choice, Jean was yanked away by an excitedly gabbling Sasha and Marco had to watch him go, waving just to see his face scrunch up in annoyance. He was left to deal with everyone else.

In all honesty, it could have been a lot worse. It was better, at least, than the scenario Marco’s imagination had thrown up. Once the wine and beer got flowing (Marco restricted himself to two watered down glasses of wine, and excused himself to down his pot-full of pills), his friends fell into the same well-worn pattern Marco was used to. Sasha kept grabbing unsuspecting passerby’s hands and pinning them to her stomach, only to whisper, “The Burpanator is in motion,” in the most serious tone she could muster. This only served to send a spray of beer from both Connie and Jean either side of her, with Connie constantly crying about how he needed air and yet never leaving Sasha’s side. He was trying, in a roundabout sort of way, to tell Jean and Marlow some kind of hilarious story but had to keep starting over from laughing so hard. Mikasa kept laying a hand on Marlow’s arm from across the table to censor the worst of his humour and ‘good’ intentions, whilst rolling her eyes at Marco and making a face like it was the biggest chore in the world.

And Jean was laughing.

He was laughing like he laughed when he was alone with Marco.

He was laughing at Sasha’s demand at strangers to feel her baby, at Connie’s helpless spluttering, at Marlow’s inability to hold in an apology where Mikasa was concerned; he just seemed incapable of hiding just how much fun he was having. He was relaxed and happy like he’d been on New Year’s before everything went wrong. But there was nothing to go wrong this time, and that knowledge was clear in the way he kept searching for Marco’s eye in the group and breathing a visible sigh of relief when he found it. He was still scared, still unsure of such a big crowd, but he was getting better. And the thing that kept him afloat in the midst of his sea of fear and faces and noise was Marco. He was Jean’s anchor. And that touched him more than any petty crush ever could.

“He looks like a human being for once,” Eren muttered into Marco’s ear, scattering his thoughts back to the depths. Eren sounded remarkably sober for someone who’d declared they were going to stick their ‘anti fun pills’ up someone’s backside, but Marco guessed Armin had got to him before he’d made good on his threat. “What did you do to the guy, give him a personality transplant?”

“Fuck off,” Marco hissed, giving a whack that actually hit its target. “He’s just enjoying himself.”

“I know. Sorta cute, if you squint real funny.” Marco’s sour look made him laugh. “Aw c’mon, I know _you_ see it, Mr. Hopelessly Devoted, but everyone else fails to get the whole ‘Jean’s so hot’ thing you got going on. Gotta admit, though, he ain’t half bad without a baby on his hip.”

“Claudine’s part of the deal, Eren. She’s not a problem. Jean loves her so much, but he’s…”

“Terrified of screwing up?” Eren guessed. When Marco gaped at him, he let out a chortle. “Yeah. He was like it when we were kids. Kept his toes in line, nose to the ground, you know the drill. Didn’t do anything he wanted to do because ‘Mammy’ didn’t let him. By the time he started getting more daring, she turned up, whisked him away. Back to square fucking one, my friend.” He took a gulp of water and grimaced like it had a strange aftertaste. “As a kid, you get angry. Angry cus you’re sad, angry cus you care… there’s a lot of anger between me and him, Marco, you know that. Maybe I’m angry now because he has you, and because you’re making him laugh like that…”

“You were ten years old, Eren,” Marco muttered, blinking at the way Eren frowned. “You were just a kid yourself.”

Eren looked like he was going to correct him, say that it wasn’t what he meant at all, but he gave in before the words could come. “I… I know. Armin says the same, he talks about it with me a lot.” He shrugged. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter now. M’just glad to see you like… this.” He gestured to Marco before taking another gulp of water.

“Like what?” Marco found himself asking, even though he was sure he knew the answer.

“You look the way you did after your first date with Thomas,” Eren said, not making eye contact.

Marco looked away anyway, glancing coyly down the table to where Jean was now in deep discussion with Marlow about something. “Ha. You can’t even deny it!” Eren’s voice crowed in his ear. “He speaks and you think he has the world tumbling out his gob. Just like with Thomas.”

Marco’s cheeks blazed. “S-someone’s poetic today,” he remarked, eyes still on Jean as he tried to calm his racing heart.

“Yeah, well. S’how I am with Armin.” Eren grinned when Marco jerked his head back to gawp at him. “You, my friend, have well and truly got the Hook,” he added gravely.

He couldn’t deny it. Eren was right. It was impossible. He was as obvious as Armin. All he could do was shrug, let out a bashful laugh and sink onto the table, still half wishing he wasn’t there and back in bed. “Hopeless,” Eren sighed with a theatrical pat of the shoulder, “I do believe you are beyond help.”

“Fuck _off_ , Eren.”

Eren gave him a gentle shove, but remarkably stopped the teasing and instead offered him more wine. Marco politely declined. The noise their rabble was kicking up was making the other customers leave, and soon there was no one left in the restaurant besides their ragtag bunch of miscreants. Levi looked like thunder, but the pained looks Armin kept casting his bank card as it vanished for minutes at a time made it difficult for him to find something to complain about. What was a little rowdiness when good money was involved, after all? After Marco was forced to duck as a bowl of olives was thrown in Marlow’s direction, he guessed that maybe they were a _little_ more rowdy than normal. It didn’t stop from the stray olives from being inhaled by Sasha in a matter of seconds, or Connie fighting Eren for the last one. Jean ended up taking it, throwing it into his mouth with a look of utter mischief on his face when the others looked at him in betrayal.

Once Armin had reassured Jean that he would pay for it if he wanted more food, Jean had decided to order another omelette to stuff his face with, and Marco couldn’t help laughing at the way he savoured every little morsel this time. He was pretty sure he’d be groaning in ecstasy if he could hear him. _No, Marco, stop thinking about the way Jean would moan, now is **not** the time…_

When Eren decided, midway through the meal, to use his chair as a stepping stool onto the table, Marco knew they were definitely in for it later. “I’d like to make a speech!” he declared, ignoring the way Armin yanked on his jeans and demanded he get down.

“Since when do you make fuckin’ speeches?” Marlow called out from down the row.

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll throw more olives at you.”

“That was Mikasa.”

“Point still stands. Now,” he continued, crouching to grab a glass from the table, “Pretty sure you all know that I got diagnosed with a complete fuckass of a disease a while back.”

“Course we do,” Connie butted in, “you don’t stop talking about it!”

“Shaddap Connie. Well I just gotta tell you all, again, that being HIV positive fucking sucks. Seriously. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone… even you Jean.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Point is, I’ve been in a bad place for a while. Fuck, I’ve been in a bad place for the majority of my life, most of you guys know that. First the drugs, now this eh? Fucking irony.” He chuckled, even though Marco’s stomach was sinking. “I get ups and downs. The downs suck balls, trust me, but the ups… the ups are pretty fucking great too.” He didn’t seem to have much of a point to the story, but carried on regardless.

“There are people out there who don’t get it. People that think I’m a walking death sentence, or a charity case who needs looking after ‘til I snuff it. But there are others who avoid me entirely, and you guys _know_ what kinds of people we’re talking about.” There was a solemn silence around the table. Marco vowed to sock Reiner in the jaw the next time he got the opportunity. “But the one who tops ‘em all, one who sincerely touched my heart, was the wonderful Mrs. Presnutt,” Eren went on sorrowfully.

 Jean snorted. Sasha clapped a hand to her mouth. Marco’s stomach jolted up. _Oh god, no._

“She was what I like to call an idealist,” Eren began, head bowed in mock prayer. “For those who knew her for the briefest amount of time, she was nothing but a loud voice shouting ‘defiler’ from her doorstep like a sweet, homophobic angel, but for me, she was the annoying neighbour who hammered on my wall at midnight screeching that I had a man in with me- when all I had was my lonely right hand…” Marco clapped a hand over his eyes with a barely concealed snigger. _Oh my god, Eren._ Levi was staring slaw jawed at him from the sidelines, clearly looking for the nearest blunt object. Armin was slumped in his chair wheezing; there was definitely a fight going on between hilarity and offence. “Every morning she would greet me with a frenzied passage from Leviticus to start my day off on the right, unholy footing, and even when she moved way she kept in touch- namely by shouting out to me on the street that I was a big gay fucklord.” Eren paused. “Okay, she didn’t _exactly_ say that, but everything gets embellished for eulogies so bear with me.”  Marco heard Jean snorting again from down the table again, and slid down his chair in order to give him a small kick. Jean jolted upright, glowering down the table until he reached Marco. With a smirk, he kicked him back.

“So, Mrs. Presnutt was a remarkable woman with a lot of big ideas. Nay, more than that, the woman had a _vision._ A vision, beautiful though it sounds, that we would all go to the flames and fire and burn for all eternity. She called us ‘bohemians’.” Eren grinned around at the assembled group, and Marco felt oddly at peace. It was like they were finally all meshed together, their band of drop outs and once-weres and rebels, and the space between them had settled. Even as he looked down the rows, he saw Marlow lay his hand on the table for Mikasa to loop her little finger around his, Sasha give Connie’s hair a playful ruffle, Connie clap a hand to Jean’s shoulder. He could even imagine Ymir and Christa, wrapped around each other as Claudine slept soundly. And then he felt a foot on his. He glanced up to see Jean smiling at him. He felt it too, he realised; this coming together was knitting back the holes punched through Jean’s security. And, as he felt Jean run his foot along his leg with a snigger, he realised how Jean owed it to him.

“And maybe bohemia is dead. Maybe it died in some long forgotten ditch somewhere in… France?” he asked Armin. When he got a wavy hand gesture and the beginning of an explanation, he shrugged and carried on. “Wherever it died, it fucking lay down in the dirt and kicked the bucket. _If_ it did. It doesn’t matter- what I’m trying to say is that things knock us down. They kick us over. They spit in our faces. It’s what this city does to us. But we got one thing those rich assholes don’t have.”

“Potentially lethal STI’s?” Marlow shouted out.

“NO.”

“Marlow for fuck’s sake, inappropriate.”

“We _have_ ,” Eren continued as Marlow was given a well-deserved smack on the shoulder by Mikasa, “something better. Sappy as it sounds, we got each other. So at least I’m not as fucked up as you bunch of losers.” There was a smattering of laughter at that. “So,” he demanded, raising his glass. “That’s what I’m toasting. To Mrs. Presnutt, the apple of my long-suffering eye, and here’s to us.” He levelled his gaze down to them all, grinning like a wild thing. Marco found himself grinning back. “For being an ‘us’- not a ‘them’.”

There was a collective drum on the table of ‘HEAR HEAR’ and the downing of whatever was left in their glasses before Eren finally heeded Armin’s frantic tugs on his jeans and stepped down, wrapping an arm around Armin as his third stepping stone.

“Yeah, uh huh, that’s all very fucking touching, but kindly get out of my restaurant. It’s past closing time,” came Levi’s flat tones from behind them. “Get out or I get my gun.”

That was enough to get the group scattering. Armin headed the final bill with a wince, despite the fact Eren’s arm was wound around his waist and Eren was demanding to know where the hell Levi had gotten a gun from. When Levi stated, coldly, that things just fell into his hands, Eren decided enough was enough.

Marco found Jean outside, still laughing with Marlow and Connie. His nose was pink with the change in temperature, but his eyes looked bright and alive. It was as though Jean had stepped out of a silent movie and was, bit by bit, getting painted with colour. “Hey,” Marco called out, the grin still etched on his face from Eren’s speech. The air outside was warmer than he’d expected, though still chilly, and it lead him to wonder if summer was on the horizon.

Jean’s eyes sought him out in a heartbeat. Marco’s own pulse skipped. Jean raised a hand to wave, and wandered back over to him after calling out a short, “Night” to the others over his shoulder. He stopped in front of him and smiled out a, “Hey,” that made Marco’s innards tie themselves in knots. “That was… quite something,” he added.

“Yeah, dinner _and_ a show,” Marco snorted, ruffling a hand through his hair. “Eren… actually did a good job tonight.”

“You say that like it’s a surprise.”

“Trust me, Eren is convinced he breaks everything he touches.”

“Mm, well not tonight,” Jean said, glancing over at the boy in question. He looked absolutely ecstatic that Armin hadn’t moved his arm from his waist yet, and looked close to bursting when he leaned into the curve of his body. “Armin’s certainly won over.”

“Heh, yeah…”

“Do you want to head off?” Jean asked after a moment. “We could go relieve Christa from the teething terror.”

“As wonderful as that sounds, I actually have something planned,” Marco said, tucking a hand into his pocket. “If you want to, of course.”

“Like that doesn’t sound creepy as hell.”

Marco laughed. “Seriously, I think you’ll like it. It’s nothing bad, promise.”

“That’s exactly what a crazed awe-murderer _would_ say.”

“Your dork is showing.”

“Watch it, Bodt.” Jean looked thoughtful, jutting his lower lip out as he glanced back to the melded shape Eren and Armin cut outside the restaurant. The lights were beginning to dim. “Okay, I’ll come. So long as it doesn’t involve the cutting up of limbs or other vital organs.”

Marco chuckled and held up both hands. “Scout’s honour.”

Jean muttered that Marco was never in the Scouts as Marco turned to find Bertha. He twitched when he felt a hand cling to the leather of his jacket. He took his hand out of his pocket and gave the offending digit a small squeeze. “Okay?” he mumbled.

“More than okay.”

More knots.

They said their goodbyes to everyone, hoping they had a good night and Marco begging Sasha to go home despite her protests of wanting to stay out (Connie promised he’d keep an eye on her). Sasha gave Marco the most obvious wink in all of humanity at the way Jean kept reaching for his hand, and Marco was thankful only he was paying attention. When they said goodbye to Eren and Armin, Eren just nodded and gave Marco a light smack on the side of his arm, whilst Armin gave Jean a knowing look that made Marco frown. “Remember what we talked about, Jean,” he said, before scruffing Eren’s hair so it stood on end and dragging him away before he could wake up the neighbourhood with his complaints.

“And then there were two,” Jean remarked as the last thread of Marlow’s scruffy coat vanished out of sight.

The lights in the restaurant were off now, having flickered away like dying fireflies, and the rest of the street was encased in darkness. The park opposite was sleeping, the breeze moving the swings enough to make them squeak. Jean’s grip on his hand tightened. “And then there were two.” Marco squeezed back.

Now the others had gone and the day was ending, Jean was beginning to get the wild look back in his eyes, the eyes that darted from one spot to the next without stopping for breath, and Marco kept their hands connected as he freed Bertha from her chains and tucked them into the right place. Jean had a frown on his face when Marco turned to hand him the helmet, and before Marco could ask Jean said, “Aren’t you gonna tell me where we’re going?”

Marco blinked. “It was going to be a surprise.” When Jean seemed even more alarmed, he quickly muttered, “B-but I can tell you if you want. It’s nothing big. I promise.”

Jean hesitated, turning the helmet over in his hands. “I trust you,” he decided, in a small voice. It was the second time he’d said it that day. “Just… just don’t go too fast, it’s dark now.”

Marco kept back the urge to wrap his arms around him and nodded instead, moving back to Bertha and waiting for the hands on his waist and the muffled ‘okay’ from Jean before he kicked the bike into life.

He made sure to take the main roads this time, the lack of traffic making it far easier to navigate the labyrinth the city posed to him once the sun went down. He did most driving by memory, but this time he was making a conscious effort to remember which way to go and how to get there quickest. Jean clung to him, head resting between his shoulder blades as he turned Bertha first left and then right, and at one point Marco brushed his hand across Jean’s if only to make sure he was still focused. He took the first road out of Trost at a usual pace, Bertha’s spluttering smoothing out to a roar as the road got straighter, and Marco felt Jean stiffen as he realised they were close to hitting the city limit. But then he turned Bertha left, onto a small road invisible from the cars heading south, and shifted up a gear to compensate for the sudden slope he was fighting her up. Bertha let out another tired cough but did as asked, zooming up the remainder of the hill like a laminitic racehorse until they finally, finally reached the top and Jean stopped digging his nails into the battered leather of Marco’s jacket.

Once they got off the bike and Marco made sure she was propped up securely, he waited. He let the wind on the top of the hill buffet his clothes, send chills up his spine, hit him with the fresh smell of air untainted. He wanted to wait. He wanted to savour the moment, with Jean still pulling the helmet off his head and smoothing his hair down. He stopped and waited, for just a moment longer.

For a moment.

Then he heard it.

“Marco…” The voice was faint, tiny. Awed. Marco bit his lip, practically fizzing with excitement as he finally turned around. He beamed at where Jean’s gaze was landed.

In all honesty, it didn’t look like much. Time had rotted away a lot of it, moss and ivy clawing up its once polished surface like thin fingers, and the surface that was visible was stained with rust and dirt and rain. But it was the way Jean was staring at it that twisted Marco’s gut. He looked completely and utterly _awestruck._ He let a small whine of happiness wheedle out of his lips and darted forward with a new found energy. “What do you think?” he asked, bopping on his heels like a child convinced they’d gotten the perfect present.

Jean’s mouth opened and closed a few times without any joy. But then, a small sound came out. “It’s… i-it’s an observatory…” he mumbled weakly.

“Yeah!” Marco took his hand and pulled him over, his excitement crackling through him like lightning. “It’s pretty old, and it’s not _perfect_ , but I’ve been up here with Marlow and done a little tinkering and it just might work!” He pointed at the roof and grinned sheepishly. “That part’s all crumbled away, so there’s no problem there. The telescope could be out of focus though, which is the only problem, but Marlow said it shouldn’t be too hard to fi-” The air rushed out of him as he was grabbed unceremoniously from the side and wrapped in a crushing hug. Marco let out the rest of his breath in a gigantic ‘WHOOSH’ and looked down at the mound of Jean he had clinging to him. “Jean?” he asked, worry clouding his enthusiasm for a second.

The arms around his waist tightened at the sound of his name. Before Marco could get truly worried, Jean mumbled a soft, “Th-thank you,” into the folds of his jacket that stopped him breathing entirely.

“A-are you okay?” he managed to wheedle out.

A small nod. “N-no one’s ever done something like this before,” he murmured. “S’a bit… a bit…”

Marco smiled and drew him in closer, resting his head on his shoulder as they stood there. “It’s alright,” he said, “I know it can be too much sometimes.” Jean let out a little sob. “But it’s okay. I wanted to do this for you. Thought you could see those stars you love painting so much.” He felt Jean’s fingers creased in his jacket, and used up every ounce of his strength not to turn and nuzzle into the side of his neck. “You… do like it, don’t you?”

“Y-yes. Y-yes I do, and you’re… you’re so…”

Jean’s words didn’t seem to want to work, and Marco didn’t press him. He just held him until he felt a hint of resistance and pulled away, running a hand through the back of his hair whilst Jean swiped viciously at the tear tracks on his face. “Wanna come and take a look inside?” Marco asked, taking hold of both of Jean’s hands to lead him closer. “You’ll probably know more about it than I will.” Jean nodded, still sniffling as Marco grinned and practically towed him over to the building.

Marco had to give the door a well-judged kick to open it. He usually had Marlow with him to shoulder charge it, but the constant battering from two 20-somethings seemed to have weakened it. It swung open with a creak and Marco stepped inside, bringing Jean in behind him. It was dark inside, made light only by the thick rectangle of moonlight that crept in from the broken ceiling. Thankfully, neither of them tripped. Marco kept chattering about things that didn’t matter, conveniently leaving out how long it had taken him to get everything in working order- not to mention the amount of bribes he had to give Marlow to get his help.

He wasn’t even sure Jean was listening; his eyes were fixed on the powerful telescope in the centre of the dome shaped room, his footsteps loud and echoing as he took tentative steps towards it. His hands slipped out of Marco’s grasp, and the ghost of heat made Marco’s fingers curl. The telescope Jean searched for leaned out of the gloom like a giant, rusted and green with age, but the bolts that held it in place were new, secure, bolts Marco had made sure were stable after nights of hammering them in without mercy. A few of the dials and instruments for measure were long faded, eaten away by the weeds that had managed to break through the observatory’s outer shell, but it didn’t matter. The telescope was intact.

Marco stopped his nonsensical babble about how he’d done it to give Jean a gentle nudge in the small of his back. When Jean jumped forwards, Marco let out a small chuckle. “Go on, it’s alright,” he urged. “We have all night. Armin said he’d take a Claudine night shift.”

“So he was in on it too,” Jean muttered.

Marco shrugged. “I had to run it by _someone_.”

Jean let out a small huff, but it seemed enough to get him over to the telescope, smoothing over its mottled surface like it was a well-loved bicycle. Marco was happy to watch him, eyes everywhere and _burning_ as they checked out every inch of the thing, scoping out the focus and angle and whether it could be moved, and he realised that the warm feeling hadn’t left his chest this time. It lingered there, lingered like Jean’s touches and smiles, and felt almost physical in the way it flickered like flames in his chest. For a moment he thought it could have been something medical, but when Jean cast an amazed glance his way, he knew for certain there was nothing his body could do to regulate it.

“M-Marco, this should work perfectly,” Jean said, voice cracking a little. Marco just grinned encouragingly as Jean angled the telescope to reach his eyeline. He paused for a moment, as if he’d remembered something important to say, but then he pressed the small glass to one eye. Marco didn’t have to wait long. Jean let out a shocked sort of laugh, one that took Marco by surprise, but before he could walk over Jean blurted out, “I can see Venus. O-oh my god, Marco, I can see Venus!”

Marco bit his lip and moved closer. “Oh?” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” Jean breathed, adjusting something on the telescope Marco didn’t even know was movable, and let out another laugh. “It’s amazing… do you know how far Venus is from us? 162 million miles at its furthest point. 162 _million_. And I can see it. I can see it right now, Marco!” His voice was getting higher, climbing to a summit in his excitement. The telescope shifted, then, Jean’s eyes seeking more, and Marco noticed the way Jean’s fingers flexed around its base.

There were some people Marco knew who loved looking for knowledge. They liked the way it changed them, turned them into something far beyond what they would have been had they not read that book, or that study, or that essay that turned their world on its head and fashioned a new one to replace it. Jean didn’t just enjoy learning; he thrived on it. He grew and evolved under the things he discovered and explored, and flourished under that flash of joy that only built and built the more he found out. He was staring at balls of burning gas thousands of millions of miles away, and he was shining. Marco thought, cliché though it was, that Jean had always had the ability to flicker and shine under someone’s gaze- it just took longer to notice. Marco didn’t need a telescope to see it; Jean glinted like an old coin under specific lights, and at that moment he was _blinding._

Marco wasn’t the blinding sort. He might have been, once, but now he felt like nothing more than a broken flicker when a bulb needed changing. He reflected Jean’s light like the moon did the sun, and pined for it to reach him just a little bit more, stay a little bit longer…

It was this that caused Marco to take a step back, giving Jean his space as he marvelled and gasped and mumbled details about the stars he could see like a child. He let Jean talk, let him ramble about the nebulae and meteorites and kept hanging onto every word, smiling and nodding and agreeing even though he was sure Jean wasn’t properly there enough to acknowledge him. At one point, Jean leaned back and beckoned him over, and when he did as asked Jean angled the telescope towards him, pointing out the deep red of Jupiter in the far distance and murmuring about how rare it was to have a clear enough night to see it. Marco wondered whether something _was_ working in their favour, for once.

He wasn’t sure how late it was when Jean started to pull back, easing out of his astronomy- addled bubble and blinking the remnants of sleep away, but when he did he cast a small smile Marco’s way. “This is amazing,” he whispered.

Marco felt that heat flare just a little bit more. “Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah.” Jean stepped closer. Marco’s breath hitched as he noticed how Jean hadn’t even hesitated- and now he was definitely close enough to be held. His hands twitched at his sides. Dare he take that other step forwards?

Jean made up his mind for him. He took Marco’s hand, smoothing his thumb over Marco’s rougher, work-worn skin, and said, “I can’t be the one having all the fun, though.” Before Marco could ask, Jean yanked him towards the exit again, snorting at the jolted little yelp that came out of his mouth. Marco nearly fell against him in the mad rush, but something in his mind said it wouldn’t have been _that_ bad an idea. Marco sneered at himself. _You’ve got to sort yourself out, Bodt._ He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just let his feelings fly around like wild horses and think that something good would come of it.

Then they were out in the open air, the fresher air making Marco’s city lungs stutter for a brief moment. Jean led him to the side of the observatory, head angled up at the sky as he moved, but Marco kept pace with him if only to lean into the heat that, for once, Jean was giving off. Was he blushing? He couldn’t tell. All that he knew was that the hand in his was warm and steady, without a hint of trembling, and that was enough for him.

Jean stopped so suddenly that Marco almost barged into him. “Look,” he said, pointing upward. Marco followed his excitedly pointing finger, and let his breath rejoin him.

In the time they had been inside the observatory, the sky had bloomed for them like a flower, each petal unfurling new stars to scatter across the vast inky black of the night. Marco wasn’t sure he’d seen it so clear for a while, and as he looked, the more he saw. One space that at first held one star suddenly held ten, all stretched out across the universe like seeds, and Marco could only gawp up at them. “Jean…” he murmured. “It’s…”

“Amazing, right?” Jean cut in. Marco didn’t let his gaze drop, but could hear the grin in his voice. “We’re lucky it’s such a clear night. If there was cloud, we’d be fucked.”

“Yeah...” They were only temporary. That’s all they ever would be. Untouchable and temporary. They had to make the most of what they had to gaze up at them. Marco felt like he wanted to reach up and grab them, tuck some into his pocket for the days when he needed them most. A hot flash bolted through him as if on cue, and he shuddered.

Jean noticed. “Are you cold?” he asked, brows drawing together.

“N-no! No, I’m… I’m fine, really,” Marco replied, glancing back to earth to give Jean a reassuring smile. He breathed a sigh of relief when Jean seemed to accept it. “Tell me some of the constellations. Can we see any right now?”

Jean looked up again, eyes darting across the sky like they were tracing the lines of long-known shapes. “There are a few,” he said after a while. “It’d probably be easier to show if we’re… hold on…” He led Marco over to where the grass was growing the shortest, and sunk to his knees without warning. Marco gave a little ‘oop!’ as he was yanked down too, but laughed at Jean’s alarmed expression and sprawled out on his back in the grass. His pulse skipped when he heard Jean nestle down beside him, their hands still connected. He gave them a squeeze to check that it was still real, and the way Jean snorted and did it back made him blush. Thankfully, it was dark enough to be hidden from view. The grass tickled the back of his neck as he lay there, trying to keep his eyes on the sky and not the boy beside him.

Jean pointed out the first cluster of stars with a weak, conscious voice, but after a slight nudge of encouragement he began to tell the stories with a breathless, bright eyed enthusiasm that made Marco smile so much his cheeks hurt. First a crow, then a bear, then a dragon thundered across the skies, alive in the tales Jean spun even though, no matter how hard Marco squinted, the stars were just stars. The patterns weren’t even animal shaped, but he could imagine; he could pretend to see Draco roaring, Ursa Major and Minor flexing their blunted claws, whilst the silent stars just flickered.

“How old are these stories?” he asked Jean, when he was sure it was finished.

Jean frowned. “Pretty old. Greek, mostly. Well, those are the ones I know.” He nestled further into the grass, head angled to search for the right pattern of stars. “There are lots of stories about them. Every culture, every region, they all have different stories for different stars. Bears can be Big Dippers and birds can be belts in different countries.”

“So it depends on the stories.”

“I guess so.” Jean paused, before turning his head towards Marco. “Everything about the world up there is human, you know. It’s so far out of our grasp, yet we’re the ones who shape it. We give the stars their names, give them value, choose whether a slab of rock is a planet or a moon or a meteor… we’re our own special kind of gods, in a way.” Jean heaved out a small sigh. “Even though we’re erasable, we can still leave a mark somehow. The extraordinary among us, at least.”

Marco stopped looking at the stars. “You don’t think you’re extraordinary?”

Jean snorted. “Marco, we live in a shitty city everyone forgets the name of, with lives that are close to the grain. Of _course_ I’m not extraordinary.”

“Maybe not in the way you’re thinking, but you are important.” Marco squeezed Jean’s hand, a little tighter than before. “You’re important to _me_.”

Jean let out a broken noise that sounded like, “oh,” and drew an inch closer. Marco’s breath hitched as he felt the heat between their bodies skip from one to the other, and tried desperately to ignore the way Jean’s touch was so soft all of a sudden. There was something Jean had told him about everything being born from stardust: the same particles and elements that made up the stars and planets were in their bodies, combined and twisted around one another to form the most intricate parts of their code. Marco had scoffed at the mere idea of it, but Jean had persisted in his explanation of atoms and chemicals. Remnants of the Big Bang were swirling around in their blood and skin and tears, he told him, and as Marco let his eyes rove over every curve and slope of Jean’s face, he could believe it.

Clearly, Jean was thinking the same thing. “T-thing about stars,” he said after a heavy beat of silence, “s’that they, uh, show themselves in other places besides the sky.”

Marco blinked slowly. “How?”

“W-well…” Jean hesitated, then brought up his free hand to drift his finger across Marco’s cheeks. Marco couldn’t help sliding his eyes shut at the feeling, a low hum resonating in his throat as Jean’s thumb traced the outline of his cheekbone. “Your freckles. They’re like… like your own constellations.” His fingers were cold on Marco’s flushed skin, but he didn’t dare move. “Guess some people’s stardust is closer to the surface.”

Marco let his eyes open. Jean had shifted closer, so close that their foreheads were almost together. He was gnawing on his lip, thumb still following the path of his freckles. His touch was so soft, so feather-light. _He was so beautiful._ Marco felt the boundary sitting between them like a pane of glass was close to shattering, and the thought sent his pulse into a frenzy. But he didn’t move. He gently butted his head against Jean’s, relishing the contact for a while longer as his eyes drifted to the ones fixed right back on him. They burned like solar fires, eclipses in their centres, and Marco found he couldn’t look for too long for fear of catching fire. Instead, he let his gaze wander down to Jean’s lips, and imagined what it would be like if they were brushing together. Maybe imagining it would be enough. He didn’t dare speak. He didn’t dare hope. He just watched Jean’s mouth open, sucking in air sharply.

“Jean?” he asked, in a voice lower than a whisper.

Jean didn’t respond right away. His teeth grazed his bottom lip. His eyes were burning. “Fuck it,” he murmured, so quietly that Marco wasn’t even sure he’d made a sound.

And then he bridged the gap.

The kiss was a nothing, a gentle thing that skimmed along the edges of Marco’s lips and left them tingling. It was a small, shadowy kiss, the kind used to test the waters they were both knee deep in. Marco sucked in a breath that sounded like a sigh. But he didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Everything in him was paralysed, lost in the feeling of lips and breath and astronomy eyes. He stayed still. That was why Jean froze. Why he made to pull away. Marco’s eyes snapped open. His heart began to drop like a pendulum. _No. No no no please…_

Then the paralysis lifted.

He responded with a small noise and grabbed for the back of Jean’s head, keeping him in place and almost knocking Jean backwards with the force of his lips crushing against the ones who had asked so politely. Marco was a gentle kisser, a tender kisser when it mattered, but this was a kiss of sheer panic. He needed Jean to know that it was surprise, not hesitation. Jean exhaled sharply at the treatment, but leant into the kiss, the way his lips moved compensating for his nerves. Marco let his grip on Jean’s head vanish with a pang of guilt, instead letting his hand loose in the shaven part of Jean’s undercut as he traced circles with his thumb. _It’s okay,_ he wanted to say through his frenzied breaths and stuttering heartbeat, _it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, don’t be scared._

Jean shook a little under his hand, still worried and unsure, but under Marco’s gentle encouragement, he stopped thinking. Marco stopped thinking. He wasn’t even sure the world was still _spinning_ at that moment in time. The planets could have all aligned and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Every ounce of tension from the past few days, weeks, months, poured into the kiss; each small touch or heavy glance or almost-something filtered out through their lips and into their gasping, desperate mouths. Jean’s gentle swipes, shaky with anxiety, became stronger.

Jean kissed like he’d been waiting for years, forcing their lips together between breaths like he was a drowning man searching for a last bout of oxygen. He kissed hungrily. He kissed desperately. He kissed like he wasn’t sure he’d get the chance to do it again. And Marco could only try to keep up, even when Jean slid a hand through his hair and pressed his body against Marco’s. He overcame Jean’s panic after a while, hushing him between kisses and tilting his head up to brush those cracked, trembling lips with his own. He traced those cracks with his tongue, and felt Jean shudder against him. It made him whimper, that feeling. Jean was breaking apart for him, shattering in every way possible. Marco wasn’t sure how together he was, either.

They didn’t move far away as they broke apart, Jean’s sides heaving like he’d run a marathon and Marco’s chest threatening to burst open. They stared at each other, just as silent as the stars above them. Jean’s eyes were wide. Marco nudged his forehead against his. And there was silence. And then Marco leaned in, and gave another soft kiss, drawing it out as long as he could before pulling away and looking Jean over. He couldn’t speak. What could he say?

Jean gulped. “Y-you…”

Marco ducked his head down. “For a while,” he mumbled.

“H-how long?”

“Long enough.”

Jean kissed him again, a gentle linger that set Marco’s insides on fire. “O-okay,” he sighed against his lips. “Okay, that’s… okay.”

It was then that a vibration sounded in Marco’s jacket pocket. Jean jumped, and pulled away like a parent had seen them. Marco was tempted to ignore it, knowing that what had just passed between them was far more important than anything anyone else had to say, but when it persisted loudly he plucked it from its respective pocket and squinted at the screen. Voicemail.

“Who is it?” Jean asked. He sounded shellshocked.

Marco squinted to check the caller id. “Sasha,” he replied.

“You better take it,” Jean said. “After all, she _is_ your roommate.”

Marco’s eyes rose from the phone to land on Jean’s. “Is that okay?”

Jean looked undecided. When Marco leaned in closer, phone pressed to his chest, Jean wordlessly tilted his head up and kissed him again, the same shadow-kiss he’d given at the start. He even made a soft noise when Marco broke away, a fistful of his jumper curled around his hand. Marco’s chest loosened. It was okay.

He slowly untangled himself from Jean and stood up, hoisting Jean up with his free hand as he pressed the few buttons required to listen to the message. Jean’s hand remained in his, full of far more promise than it had before, and Marco couldn’t help the wide smile that stretched across his face.

When the audio kicked in, however, the smile shattered.

“ _Marco, is that you? It’s Connie, shit man, sorry it’s so late, but Sasha… Sasha’s got some pains in her stomach. Sh-she’s **bleeding.** We’re at the hospital, and she wants you here. F-fuck, I don’t know what’s happening, no one will tell me, the nurses keep saying it’s better we don’t know… Eren’s trying to find out stuff but they’re keeping quiet… b-but I think it’s the baby. I think… **f-fuck, Marco** … I think they’re scared she’s gonna lose it_.”  

Marco was dragging Jean behind him at a breakneck run before he even heard the dialing tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *puts crown back on and sliiiiides into the nearest hedge*


	15. People Like Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whew, and an SFS update is here again guys! Decided to skip the Hackamore update schedule to keep in time with SFS; it will be the next thing I'm working on now though, so not to worry!  
> Anyway, the outcry last chapter was HUGE so, like, thank you for caring so much about my secondary characters :'D Sasha Braus is a treasure, it is true, but all of your reactions in general were just brilliant, so thank you all for your feedback! I'm still getting through replying to you all but I'll get there, I swear! 
> 
> So, a lot happened in the last chapter. Now the boys have to deal with the repercussions of those actions: sometimes, things done in the heat of the moment carry more weight than imagined, after all...  
> Expect lots of crying, sap and Eren being Eren. Of course.
> 
> My tumblr is here: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com, feel free to send me asks/messages on there or comments on here, I LIIIIVEEE for feedback! I have now got a full time job so my reply speed may slow, but rest assured I'll get there! 
> 
> So, enjoy the chapter guys! (and don't kill me too hard okay okay)

Marco really did hate hospitals.

They were cold and imposing to him, nothing but feeding stations for grief and bad news. Every time he shut his eyes, he could remember the time where Trost Central was no stranger to him. It had been a home from home once. He had lived out of a rucksack dragged with him back and forth like a worker ant, and that was it. That was his life. Soon, Marco had found himself bringing that miasma home with him; the stench of chemicals masked the sickly smell of people who were hurting, but couldn’t cry out. It did little to settle the churning of innards and the rising of bile. It couldn’t cover up his own sickness. He vowed never to step foot in a hospital again after Thomas, after everything to do with him, but the world had a way of messing with him. And so, here he was again. Sat on the same old plastic chairs with his back against the wall, hoping the world would stop spinning for a second. This time, he had someone’s hand in his.

Jean hadn’t let go since they left Bertha leaning against the side of the building, chained against the sturdiest looking thing there, and rushed into the gaping doors like walking into a battlefield. Jean’s hand was the steady one- Marco’s quaked like a leaf in a gale. No amount of squeezing could help, even if he squeezed back. Jean didn’t even look at him. None of the others noticed; if they did, no one commented. There were bigger things to worry about. Sasha was the priority.

Connie had clearly called everyone he could think of, as the number of eyes that lifted up at their entrance accounted for the entire group. Even Marlow was pacing up and down, a permanent snarl on his face as he tried to shake off the hospital nerves. The entire group set up camp in the hallway without a word, throwing down coats and scarves and even blankets to act as their own large bed, ignoring the complaints from the overstressed nurses and bleary eyed doctors. Nobody spoke. It was like the light from earlier on in the night had been extinguished, snuffed out with a single phonecall that got them all running. Once Marlow stopped pacing and slumped to the floor, Mikasa quickly fell asleep with her head on his knee and body curled into the smallest ball imaginable whilst Eren leant against the wall beside Marco, trying not to fidget as much as he wanted to. Armin was talking to the nurses. Ymir and Christa were on their way, if a frenzied call was anything to go by. They were all there, the nucleus of their self-proclaimed family huddled in some bleach-washed corridor.

Marco wasn’t sure what was going on with Sasha. It seemed like nobody knew. The nurses were silent, drifting around them like phantoms, and the doctor who’d been dragged in had come out ten minutes later shouting for a midwife. Having a doctor admit he didn’t have the experience was not exactly boosting morale, but they had to keep positive.

Connie was a mess. He had eyes only for the door leading to Sasha’s room, eyes wide and lost like a child, and no amount of soft reassurance could sway him. His hands were clasped in front of his lips in a silent prayer, eyes only sliding shut for a few moments at a time before flickering open whenever a noise startled him into thinking the door would open. Marco’s heart went out to him; it skipped over the faded plastic and polished floors and nestled close, wanting to tell him that it was okay. He understood what it was like more than anyone.

Connie didn’t even have to say how much he cared- they all knew.

Eren broke the silence with a heavy sigh. “Well, this is fuckin’ shit,” he commented. Marco slid his gaze over to him, but no one said anything. They were all numb. Eren huffed out a breath and washed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep himself awake. “I need a cigarette.” He squinted at Jean. “You got any?”

“I quit,” Jean muttered. His voice was devoid of any emotion, and Marco let out his own little sigh at the sound. “Could fuckin’ slaughter a coffee though.”

Eren gave a sniff. “Wanna come with? I’m gonna go kick the shit out of the snack machine to get the free junk.” When Jean nodded, Eren took a look around everyone. “Anyone want coffee? Stolen snack goods?”

Marco shut his eyes. “M’fine,” he replied.

Eren stared at him like he’d only just realised who he was leant next to. His face morphed into a frown. “Marco, are you gonna be okay? You shouldn’t be here, shit, you’re white as a fuckin’ sheet.”

“Well then it’s lucky I’m not here for my own health then, isn’t it?” Marco asked, slowly opening his eyes to stare up at Eren. “I’m here for Sasha. Not for me.”

Eren’s mouth twisted, but he said nothing else. Marco was grateful for that, at least. “C’mon Kirschtein, let’s go get some coffee,” he said eventually, looking back to Jean. “Might let you bum a fag if you ask super nice.”

“I _told_ you, I fucking quit.”

Marco realised how hesitant Jean was about leaving him on his own; the hand in his grew stronger, clutched a little tighter before he let it slide free when he stood. Jean didn’t make eye contact, but he didn’t need to. His thumb brushed the back of his hand and stopped the shakes for a brief second, before it was gone. Marco bit his lip as he watched them walk away, talking in low voices and trying not to draw attention to themselves. The taste of Jean’s lips seemed like a far off memory now, a faded photograph in his mind that he couldn’t quite remember taking, and it made everything ache so much more.

“What is _up_ with you two?”

He turned around to see Connie giving him a watery quirk of a smile. “Don’t look so innocent, something’s gotta be going on. I thought you had something going on with S-Sasha for a bit, but you guys? You’re something else.”

Marco blinked. “You thought me and Sasha were-?”

Connie gave a weak shrug. “She says she wants to marry you a lot.”

“Oh come _on_ Connie,” Marlow piped up from his place on the floor, sending a snoozy glower their way. “Everyone wants to marry Marco, it’s a fact of life. Even _I_ wouldn’t say no if he popped the question.”

“I’m swooning, Marlow.”

“Shurrup Freckles, it’s true and you know it is.”

Connie let out a humourless chuckle and shrugged. “I dunno man, you just… seemed like you had it together with her. You guys click. But then I saw you with Jean, and got it. You’ve been making goo goo eyes at each other for weeks.”

Marco sighed. “It’s complicated,” he said. The mere thought of it was shooting a chemical reaction of panic into his bloodstream like a drug. The questions of _what now_ and _what if_ hadn’t been asked yet, swallowed up in the midst of the hospital lights, but they would come. He scooted up a space to nudge Connie in the side. “Romance is a terrifying thing.”

“Yeah, it is.” Connie’s eyes were cast down, calculating, and Marco realised that now was as good a time as ever. He had to bite the bullet.

“She loves you, you know.” He felt Connie’s stare pierce him as he added, “She’s been through a lot. She’s had her trust broken a lot of times, and she’s been treated like she doesn’t matter. But you make her feel like she’s the only person in the world you wanna be around, and she really needs that right now.” He tried to ignore the tug in the pit of his belly at the sight of Connie tearing up, nodding fervently to try to keep the attention off his streaming eyes, but it was hard. “Connie. You’re _great_ for her. And I’m saying that as her friend and roommate. And a guy she wants to marry, apparently. Because, trust me, if you weren’t, she wouldn’t look at you the way she does.”

Connie let out a broken whimper, nodding like his head was going to fall off. “I-it’s just hard, you know?” he mumbled eventually, hiding his face in his hands. “I just- she’s s-so beautiful Marco. How do I deserve someone like that? Going after a girl like that could’ve gotten me killed back home, but… she’s so great. Fuck man, she’s so beautiful and funny and stupid and she’s so _scared_ …”

“She’s going to be scared,” Marlow butted in. When Marco and Connie focused on him, he flushed a little. “W-well, being a mother is a big responsibility. She probably still feels like a kid. She’s allowed to be scared, and… so are you. Bein’ scared’s not a weakness.” He shrugged. “C’mon Con, _I’m_ dense as fuck and I can see she’s into you. Ever since that New Year’s party.”

Connie bit his lip and wiped his eyes, sniffling through a ‘thank you’ that made Marlow snort sleepily and turn away from the conversation, his two cents of emotion used up for the evening. “I m-mean, will she want me? She’s got a baby, and I don’t know how to be a f-father…”

“Do you think Jean knew how to be a father?” Marco asked. “Connie, you’ll make a great dad.”

“Yeah, considering he’s already like… a reptile dad or some shit.”

“Marlow, go to sleep.”

“Like fuck I am.”

Connie was by no means relaxed by their words, but Marco saw a slackening of his shoulders that hadn’t been there before, and the tears that rolled down his face weren’t tinged with as much sadness as they could have been. They were all grasping onto that hope, that tiny glimmer that made everything worth fighting for.

Eren and Jean came back with a smorgasbord of crisps, chocolate and sweets after a few minutes, Eren letting out a triumphant cry as he up-ended them onto the floor beside Marlow and sat down to take the best of the spoils. Jean followed suit, ignoring the empty chair next to Marco and instead contenting himself with resting his head on his knee. _Jean must have been exhausted_ , Marco realised as he drifted a hand down to his hair. He wasn’t even sure what the time was, the hospital hallway devoid of anything to suggest time passing at all, but he knew it had to be late. He tried to run a hand through Jean’s hair, play with the strands in an attempt to soothe or comfort, but Jean jerked his head away with a scandalised look. His eyes were large as they looked back at him. Marco understood. His chest ached and his fingers twitched, but he understood. He backed off, let Jean fight over the Parma Violets with Eren, and pretended there was nothing more to them than just friends. It was true what he had said to Connie: it was complicated.

Mikasa woke up after a spell and moved onto the empty seat beside Marco, resting her head on his shoulder and huffing her displeasure at the bright, artificial lights above them, and Marco was reminded once again of how much of a family they were. Everyone was banding together, trying to offer silent solace in the only ways they knew how, and with each bit of kindness, their bonds got stronger, tightening like rope. No one could have gotten them to move.

It felt like centuries before the door opened, but when it did all eyes shot upwards. Connie and Marco’s heads snapped to attention. Eren dropped the chocolate he was trying to keep out of Marlow’s reach. The nurse who came out was a short, bubbly sort of girl that was around their age, and she baulked at how many people were staring, their eyes heavy with pressure. “U-um you do know there’s not supposed to be so many people in the hallways, there are designation waiting are-”

“How is she?” Marco asked.

She frowned at Marco’s question. She clearly had her instructions, for when she glanced around the group again she asked, “Who is the father?”

There was a collect shout of, “I AM.”

The nurse paused. Then, realising she would have no choice but to inform the entire assembly of people sprawled across the wing of the hospital, she gave in. “Miss Braus will be okay. It was a simple softening of the cervix that caused the bleeding, common in first time mothers. Although, granted, it usually occurs during the first trimester…”

“Wh-what about the stomach aches?” Connie said.

“Unrelated,” the nurse replied. “She may have just had a stomach upset that worked as an unfortunate coincidence. These things happen. Worried the doctor just as much as her, I think.”

“And the baby?” Jean cut in. Marco blinked. He knew Jean and Sasha got on well, but the way Jean was looking at the nurse, it was as though it was _his_ baby in there. He looked gaunt all of a sudden, the way he looked when he’d told him that Claudine was teething, or sick, or not very happy. He had the look of someone who _cared_.

She smiled kindly at him. “Miss Braus’s baby is just fine.”

Her words were gentle, yet enough to pop the bubble around Connie. Suddenly he was sobbing, shoulders convulsing as the emotional dam he’d constructed around himself broke its banks. Everyone dove in his direction, wrapping arms around every inch of him they could reach and muttering words of comfort: “it’s alright man, everything’s okay”, “she’s gonna be fine, you heard her”, “the baby’s alright Con’, that’s great news”. There was a sentence for every sob, a pat for every shudder, and Marco even saw Jean reach out and squeeze Connie’s leg with a light touch. Their eyes connected and fell away almost instantly.

Marco gulped, and looked up at the nurse. “Thank you,” he said. He meant it. His voice sounded hoarse, wearied from the time spent awake. For a moment, he didn’t even recognise it as coming from him. Something was surging through him, a light feeling that reminded him of his time up on the hill overlooking Trost, and when it hit that it was _relief_ , he had to bite his lip to stop it shaking. He wasn’t used to good news in hospitals. He was used to the shakes of heads and lowered gazes. He thought that was all he’d ever receive, from a place like this. The knowledge that Sasha was going to be _okay_ , that this hospital visit wasn’t like the last time, was almost confusing. He wanted to frown at the nurse, to ask if she was sure, that someone close to him couldn’t _possibly_ be lucky. But he didn’t. He just rested his head on Connie’s back, and hugged him tight. It might only have been to stop his own tears from falling, but Connie didn’t seem to mind.

“C-can I see her?” Connie asked after a moment, glancing up at the nurse. “S-Sasha, can I… can I see her?”

The nurse smiled. “Of course you can. She may be a little groggy from the anaesthetic but she’ll be conscious for visitors. Only a few,” she added when every member of the group scrambled to their feet. “Who is her next of kin? They should be the ones who see her first.”

“Keep dreaming, love,” Eren muttered, brushing himself down as he stood. “I doubt even Sasha knows where _they_ are.”

The nurse was a little discomfited at the news, but soldiered on with her job. “W-well, only a few at a time. I don’t want her crowded.”

There was an overall agreement that Marco should go with Connie. His stomach twisted at the thought, and Eren shuffled over. “Let me go in with him. We’ll probably both need to get Connie out of the hole he’ll dig.” Marco felt his arm ensnared by Eren, and looked down at him. The fine line Eren’s lips drew on his face was enough for him to realise he’d not been quite as subtle as he’d thought. Eren, after all, had been there with him the first time. They might not have held hands, or spoken quite as truthfully as they did now, but he’d been there. He knew what the pain felt like. Marco let out a shudder, and offered a grateful smile in Eren’s direction before looking for Jean in the group.

When their eyes met, Jean almost jerked his head away. The poison began to flood Marco’s system. It started to doubt everything, and that was when the ice set in. That moment up at the observatory wasn’t what he thought it was. It was a moment of shadow, something so fleeting and beautiful but it was gone now, nothing in Jean’s eyes to suggest there was anything there in the first place. Marco wasn’t sure if the hurt he harboured was visible, but the more he stared the fiercer Jean’s look grew.

The mask was coming up again, cracked and damaged, but nonetheless there. Jean was determined not to let anything break through, not in this hallway with so many people staring. He shrugged in regards to Marco’s unvoiced question, and Marco wanted to tell him that he would be back. They could sort things out the way they were meant to be, but only once he’d seen Sasha and known it was okay. As Jean turned his head away, though, talking to Marlow about something to do with the shop, he wondered if his promise had been heard.

When the three of them stepped into the room, Marco squeezing Connie’s shoulder and making sure he didn’t bump into anything important, Sasha wasn’t hard to spot; it was mainly due to the fact that she was griping rather loudly about the lack of food around. “I’m hungry, can’t you get me a grape? A nut? A SEED? Anything?” she was demanding of her nurse, a portly lady with a face that suggested she’d been in the job too long to worry about pregnant women shouting at her.

“Miss Braus, you’ve been under medication, you cannot eat for another few hours.”

“But what if I want to eat NOW? I’m STARVING.”

Marco’s steps sped up. “Sasha!” he called out. Anything witty died on the tip of his tongue as her eyes snapped wider and she wriggled a little more enthusiastically to see behind the nurse.

“Marco? I-is that you?” she asked. When she managed to catch sight of them, she squeaked, “Eren! Connieeee!”

Connie was almost at a run as he bundled past the nurse in his desperation to get to her, but then he stopped dead. It was like there was an invisible barrier holding him back from getting too close; he just stared down at her with bulging eyes. Sasha’s smile, if it were possible, got brighter. “Hey Big Man, how’s it hanging?” she said, shuffling herself to a sitting position on the bed.

Connie washed a hand over his face, trying to stop the tears from spilling over his lids. “Y-you’re okay,” he managed to get out, his voice strained and shaking.

Her smile softened, the pretence falling away for a moment. _Shit,_ Marco realised, _she really had been scared._ “Yeah, I am,” she said. “And Destroyer. T-they’re fine too.” She reached out a hand and took Connie’s, biting her lip so hard it flushed pinker than normal, and guided them both onto her stomach. “See?”

Connie let out a noise that sounded a lot like a whimper as the baby kicked, and Sasha’s hand squeezed his own. “Hey, Big Man, whatcha cryin’ for? I’m alright, the nurses said. I’m gonna be okay.”

Connie nodded, tears rolling down his nose, and when Sasha made more concerned noises he simply brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently. “Y-You s-scared me s-so b-bad,” he sniffled, pressing another kiss to her hand. Then another. And another. “S-sorry I was so useless, I d-didn’t…I c-couldn’t…”

Sasha shushed him softly, brows drawing down in distress. “You were fine, you big lug, stop worrying.”

“Yeah, Sir Blub-A-Lot,” Eren muttered, earning a jab in the side from Marco.

They all spoke quietly for a moment, Sasha flinging her arms around Marco and pressing him close to her with a brief kiss to his cheek for good measure, and Eren was met with the same treatment. He shrieked like a banshee when she crushed him to her chest, but the façade didn’t last long. Once Sasha started admitting how panicked she’d been, how she really hadn’t wanted to lose what was currently keeping her alive, Eren let her hug him as tightly as she wanted. When it was Connie’s turn, however, Sasha’s remaining bravado disappeared in a puff of smoke. She bit her lip and scooted closer to him, reaching out a hand to card it through his slightly-in-need-of-a-trim hair. She smiled. “You still crying, Con’?”

“N-n-no…”

“Liar.” She poked her tongue between her teeth and tugged on his hair slightly, urging him to look at her. When he finally obeyed her, she smiled, however nervously. “Don’t you cry for _me_ , Big Man. I’ll do enough crying for the three of us.”

Marco could see Connie doing the maths in his head. There was almost physical sound as his eyes snapped open, his gaze flying to Sasha, and the tiny little nod she gave in response. “’Course I want you, Con’. All you had to do was ask.”

Connie _bawled._

Marco took that as his cue to go, nudging Eren to do the same as he backed out of the room with a smile. Sasha was pulling Connie closer to her, trying to get him to shut up by latching her lips onto his, but Connie’s senseless wailing and blabbering was making it difficult. He chuckled under his breath before slipping out of the door. At least someone was turning out okay.

“Guys, it is _way_ too straight in there,” Eren announced, flinging his hands up in the air as soon as they got out. “M’gonna have to go find someone’s dick to suck to feel normal again.” Marco rolled his eyes and gave him a shove. He felt the fatigue begin to seep into his bones now that the danger was passed, like it was waiting for the right moment, and let his eyes slide shut with a heaving sigh. That same relief was trickling down his throat like warm honey, soothing the panic and leaving sheer tiredness in its wake. He wanted to sleep for years and never wake up. But, when his eyes fell open again and revealed Marlow telling Eren he was a disgusting little roach, he realised he couldn’t sleep yet.

Jean was missing.

His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach like a stone, weighed down with questions that burst from his gut. Maybe Ymir and Christa had arrived and dropped Claudine off. Perhaps Claudine needed to sleep, and Jean had headed on home. For some reason, the sinking stone suggested otherwise. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced down the corridor, half hoping that he’d find Jean there, but nothing. He had vanished like smoke. He bit his lip.

“Marco?” he heard Mikasa ask, brushing a hand over his shoulder where he stood leant against the ward door. “Is everything-?”

“Is he gone?” His mouth was dry. He swallowed painfully before looking back to Mikasa. “Jean, is he- is he gone?”

Mikasa’s face sobered. “He’s talking to Armin. That’s what he said at least- could have scarpered, for all I know.” The strokes on his shoulder grew stronger. “He looks pretty spooked. What happened? He hasn’t spoken to any of us- not like that’s new for Jean, but he’s been quieter than usual.”

_Shit. He’d gone too far._

Marco groaned and ran a hand through his hair, sinking back against the door. The Observatory was a fantasy world, the kind you could fall into and get lost in. The land of the fairies, where anything was coated in technicolour and possibility- but eventually, falling down the rabbit hole wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There always had to be a time to come back to the real world of black and white. He just wished it hadn’t have happened so soon. “I have to talk to him,” he said, the back of his head hitting the cold door with a shudder.

Mikasa looked thoughtful. “Tell you what,” she pressed a five pound note into his palm, “get me and you a coffee so we can stay awake. Jean can’t have gone far.”

Marco’s hand curled around it on instinct, and he flicked his eye down to stare at Mikasa. She stared right back, raising a brow at his scrutiny. “What? I need coffee. And so do you, you look like shit.”

He shut his eyes again and huffed out a breath. “I got in too deep again, didn’t I ‘Casa?”

She shrugged. “Sure, but it’s part of your package deal. You fall fast, can’t be helped. I’d never change you. Just… be careful of the sharp rocks at the bottom.” She smiled. “Go on. Coffee? Please? I’m dying, and I don’t think anyone would forgive me if I fell asleep again.”

“I dunno, I think Marlow would give it a pretty good g.”

He got a punch in the arm for that. “Don’t be a jerk, he’s being really understanding. I mean… it surprised me, cus I thought all he was interested in was a relationship, but… he takes what he gets. And that’s alright. He hasn’t asked about the whole sex thing yet but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Ew.”

“Don’t ‘ew’ me, you got your world rocked.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to think about you and Marlow doing it.”

Once Marco managed to escape further beatings, he set off down the hallway towards the coffee machine. Mikasa was right- he did fall too fast. He didn’t fall for just _anyone_ , though, and that was the problem; whatever it was that made him cautious around the majority of people, it cherry-picked the ones he was going to fall head over heels for. Whatever it was, it was a son of a bitch.

He turned the corner, still lost in thought, when the hook in his gut gave a very big tug. Jean was standing by the coffee machine. Armin was stood beside him, head lowered and brow raised as he listened. Jean was… talking to him? Marco tilted his head to one side, but continued walking. This was normal. Normal was good. Jean never wanted it to be weird. But then he thought back to what Jean had said on that hilltop. In a roundabout way, he’d said he wanted to be with him. He had said, without words, that the kiss wasn’t a mistake. That he might actually want _more_ where it had come from. Marco’s stomach twisted as he got closer.

Armin spotted him first. He cleared his throat to announce that they were no longer alone and Jean whirled around, eyes wide.

Marco wasn’t sure what to say. “Hi,” he said, trying to keep the warmth out of his voice. It trickled out anyway, but he bit back any further sentences as he turned to the coffee machine. “Sasha’s alright. She’s stable right now, and I think Connie’s crying so much he could fill a new Nile.” He let out a short, weak laugh as he fed the machine his money and punched in the combinations. “So, uh, nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good,” Armin said. Marco could hear the smile in his voice, but he wasn’t sure if it was a doctor kind of smile or a real one. He kept his eyes on the coffee, the scalding water filling up the cup that never had enough granules in the bottom to make a decent drink. He’d drink it anyway. He didn’t have much of a choice. He needed to stay awake, after all.

He kept his eyes on the coffee, watching it slowly turn from a sloppy mud consistency into something more drinkable, and refused to look up to see Jean. No matter how much he wanted to, he didn’t. He _couldn’t_. What if he said something that made Jean more uncomfortable than he already was? Because he was uncomfortable; he could tell by the way he was shifting his weight beside him like a naughty schoolchild. He wasn’t in the mood to tiptoe around him, no matter how much he wanted to- he was tired, Sasha was stable and he just wanted to go home.

“I’ll- er- be back in a minute.”

By the time he flicked his eyes up, Jean was gone. He lost what little breath he had left in his lungs, and was forced to suck in a deep breath. Jean was shutting down, throwing up the barriers Marco was so sure would be gone by now. It hurt to see it. He turned back to the coffee, trying to keep his heart afloat before it was too late.

“Marco.”

His eyes betrayed him once again. They flew up to land on Armin, and he offered a small smile. “Eren was wondering where you’d gone,” he said.

Armin chuckled. “I bet he did. I was talking to some of the nurses. I used to train with them, it’s nice to see that they got where they wanted to be. And, I mean, I worry about Sasha, but… it’s not really my place.” The smile he cast Marco’s way was shyer, more Armin than any of his other smiles.

Marco tried out a smile. “Of course it’s your place, Armin. You don’t ever have to feel like you don’t belong- you know us all. Once you’re in the family of fuck ups, it’s pretty hard to shake.”

Armin laughed at that, rubbing the back of his neck as they stood there. The awkwardness shouldn’t have stretched as thin as it did, the laughter dying and the speech dead, but when Armin spoke again it was subdued. “Jean told me about the observatory.” Marco lowered his head, wheezing out a breath. _Of course he had_. He told Armin everything. He felt choked. “Marco, you can’t blame yourself, alright?” Armin continued, the gentle voice back as he reached for his wrist. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

Marco scoffed. “W-what, it’s not me, it’s him?” he said. “Like I haven’t heard that before.” The bitterness was rising in the back of his throat, stinging his mouth as it tumbled out. It came out softly, though, like he’d tried to throw a feather. He wasn’t really angry. Not bitter. He was just so _tired_ , and nothing made sense. Deciphering Jean was like sitting down with a complicated piece of machinery all night and still not knowing what its purpose was the next morning. Marco thrived on it, wanted to know everything about him, but he was still holding back, still so scared of him… and he wasn’t even sure if he could soothe that fear.

“Marco, please listen to me. I’ve known Jean for a long time. He’s got a lot going on in that head of his, and-”

Marco jolted when a hand wrapped around his wrist from behind. When he spun around, he came face to face with those supernova eyes and cracking lips. His eyes widened. “Je-”

“Come with me.” The words were urgent, falling out of Jean’s mouth before he had the change to censor them, and all Marco could do was nod. Where else would he go, after all? Thoughts of orbits and gravitational pulls invaded his mind as Jean gave a gentle tug on his wrist, and set off walking. Marco barely caught Armin’s eye to see if it was okay, but the blonde waved him away with a grin and picked up the coffee he’d left on the machine. The one clasped in his hand was spilling out everywhere, dripping onto the pristine floors as Jean led him away from the halls and the doctors and the groans of disillusioned patients. His fevered walk soon turned to a jog, and then a run as they hurtled down the steps, Marco bursting with questions but not wanting their connection to snap.

They tore past the main foyer, the scolds of the receptionist ringing in their ears as Jean shoved the doors open and yanked Marco past the paramedics and shapes milling in the entryway to the hospital. Marco had given his coffee up as a lost cause now, half of it over him and the rest flung on the floor. He only dropped the cup when Jean pushed him up against the side of the hospital with a surprising amount of strength.

It knocked the breath out of him, but what made the air he regained stutter was the way Jean’s free hand lay itself, trembling, on his cheek. “J-Jean…” he tried to say, but then his hand got dropped, and Jean was cupping his face in his hands. All attempts at speech vanished. Jean didn’t need to talk. His eyes, his body language, said everything. Marco calmed the tempest raging under his skin by nudging his head against Jean’s, relishing the feel of their skin together. Jean twitched away, but came back just as quickly, eyes sliding shut with the realisation that he wasn’t going to be pushed away. His fingers creased into Marco’s hair, not quite tugging but not quite being gentle either, and when Marco opened his eyes he saw that Jean’s teeth were gritted. “Jean, a-are you-?”

“Kiss me,” Jean whispered, his voice hoarse from lack of use. His eyes squeezed tightly shut before he opened them again to stare at him. “ _Please,_ Marco, kiss me.”

If Marco really did have any breath left in his body, it was gone now. Jean’s fingers creased against the curves of his face, digging into his scalp just a little bit, and Marco couldn’t resist the way he stared. He brought a hand up to Jean’s face, steadying him as he drew close, and heard Jean’s breath hitch the moment before he brushed his lips against his. He savoured that moment, treasured it like spun gold, before he let his lips become more insistent against Jean’s.

He smoothed his thumb against the arch of Jean’s jaw, passing warmth into the alabaster skin and far more besides. It was more than warmth. He felt Jean come _alive_ under his hands, a statue moulding to flesh as their lips came together and apart again and again, Jean pushing him back against the wall and pinning him there with his body. Soon, he was the one taking over, the one hurrying the kisses and daring to tug on Marco’s lips with his teeth until they were as flushed as his own. The weight tying Marco’s heart to the bottom of his stomach was cut loose as they stood there, kissing out of sight of anyone or anything, and he willingly let Jean take over with a barely whispered command.

Jean’s kissing was frenzied, like he hoped that every time his lips burned against Marco’s it would whisper a new word to him. His hands told stories as they stroked lines down his face, joining up his freckles like he’d memorised them from each glance he’d stolen. His fingers dug in and kept Marco where he wanted him, tilting him this way and that as he tentatively drew his tongue around the edges of his mouth, awaiting permission. Marco answered by drawing his own tongue into Jean’s mouth with a playful swipe, and gained a whimper as payment. They spoke without needing to, and it made something in Marco’s chest sob.

When they broke apart, Jean was trembling. Marco let his hand trail up and brush its way through the ashy part of Jean’s undercut, their foreheads still touching as Jean shook. “It’s okay,” he breathed, closing his eyes at the sound of Jean’s hitched breath, “Sssh, Jean, you’re okay, it’s alright.”

“N-no it’s not,” Jean finally managed to say, the grip on him only getting harder as he looked up at him. “It’s _not_ okay, Marco.”

“It is.” He planted a small kiss on each corner of his mouth. “Calm down, alright? Just breathe.”

Jean couldn’t. He kept planting sloppy kisses on Marco’s lips, jaw, chin, like he was searching for answers in his skin. Marco felt the slow hum of his body enjoying the attention, but he kept talking. “I’m not taking advantage or trying to trick you, okay? I’m not, I swear I’m not…”

“Thought that it was gonna be the only time,” Jean mumbled against his lips. “Th-thought I was better than that… thought that maybe if I did it just once, I’d be satisfied…” His kisses tried to trail down his neck, but Marco had heard what he needed.

“Jean.” Marco levered him away, forcing him to make eye contact. “You don’t have to rush, okay? I’m not going anywhere, not if you don’t want me to.” The tension disappeared in Jean’s limbs. Marco sighed. “D-Don’t start beating yourself up about pushing a wall between us when I’m on your side. I’m right there with you.” When Jean’s eyes lowered, Marco’s brows creased into a frown. He was still shaking; Marco could feel it reverberating through him like echoes shouted into a ravine. But Jean needed to know that it wasn’t just him shouting anymore. That was when it hit him. “You… really did think I was humouring you, didn’t you?” he said.

Jean shrugged. “M-maybe. Y-you’re so nice to everyone,” he muttered, looking absolutely wretched. “I mean, ‘ve seen you kiss Mikasa before.”

“I don’t kiss her like _that_.” Jean didn’t laugh. “Jean, come on, what is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, running his hands up and down the scarecrow arms he held so carefully. “Tell me.”

Jean paused. There was a fight going on in his mind, Marco could see it, but he was willing to wait. He would wait, standing outside Trost Central in the dead of night, for Jean to win the fight with his conscience. When Jean spoke, he broke Marco’s heart.

“This is wrong.”

Marco dropped his hands from Jean’s arms. He slumped against the wall like he’d been winded, the hum gone and the bile starting to churn. Memories of displeased frowns and raised voices crossed his mind. **_"You have problems."_** The bile rose. “Oh.”

Jean bit his lip. “Y-yeah. Th-this is wrong, a-and _I’m_ wrong. I don’t… I can’t do things without being afraid of getting judged. I can’t be with anyone without messing them up.”

“You can’t say that and expect me to be okay with it,” Marco mumbled faintly. “You can’t stop people from-”

“I’ve done a pretty good job of it so far.” Jean squared his shoulders, shuffled his weight, and let a sigh escape him. “B-but… I can’t do that to you.”

“Me?”

“No,” Jean shook his head, “Not to you. I can’t and I’m sorry… I can’t fucking _help_ it. You’re… _fuck…”_ He pulled back, stepping out of Marco’s space and shaking his head. He staggered back like a drunk, grimacing around the words he was trying to say but couldn’t quite manage. He took another swaying step back, before spinning around and running a hand through his hair. “You’re what I’ve wanted, Marco. For a long time.”

A pang rattled through Marco’s system at his words. They were stark and bold, but he still couldn’t quite believe them. He frowned down at the gravel his shoes were in the process of scuffing up. “Wh-what?”

Jean cringed and gave his hair a sharp tug, the nervous tic returning as he unravelled his tangled thoughts. “It’s wrong,” he said after a moment. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it.”

Marco’s eyes came up.

Jean had his arms folded now, gaze on the floor as he spoke, and he was starting to blush more and more. “I-I can’t do what other people can. I can’t… do affection in public. I can’t… go on dates without bringing my baby with me. I can’t…” He almost keeled over with the force of what he was trying to get out, but Marco was ready for it. When he surged forward to clap a hand to his shoulder, Jean let out a shudder and finally looked up. “I can’t do a lot of things that you’d want from someone. But… I might be able to, eventually. A-and… and I think I want to. W-with you.”

Marco swallowed back the tears he was trying not to let slide out, shifting his hand from Jean’s shoulder to the side of his neck, skimming over every curve until he reached his cheek, and smiled at the way it burned under his fingers. “You’re scared,” he stated. “And that’s okay. I’ve been there, Jean. I’ve been the scared one. And, g-god, I’m _still_ scared. But there’s no user’s manual to these things- we can take it one day at a time, or every hour or second, if that’s what makes you comfortable. We don’t have to call it anything that scares you, or makes you nervous.” He traced the edges of his undercut, the part he’d always wanted to touch but never felt like he could, and now his fingers prickled with the realisation. “I just need to ask you one question. And you’ve got to be honest. I need honesty.”

“What?” Jean’s eyes flickered to his, all stardust and fear.

Marco wetted his lips, his heart thrumming in his chest like the wings of a dying bird. “Do you want to be with me?”

Jean let out a tearless sob at the question. He shut his eyes tight and nodded, ducking his head under Marco’s chin and burying himself in the folds of Marco’s jumper. “Yeah,” he said, a broken second later. “Y-yeah, I think I do.”

The warm feeling that rushed through Marco at that moment broke apart the hook he’d been tethered to for so long. He finally felt able to wrap his arms around Jean the way he wanted to, kiss the top of his head like he’d thought about, feel the press of warm, shaky lips across his pulse. He breathed in that smell of formula milk mixed with Jean’s own musk and found himself shaking right along with the boy he held. And when they pulled apart enough for Jean to press a kiss to his lips, it wasn’t quite as rushed.

* * *

Marco could have let Jean’s nervous kisses wash over him like waves on sand for hours, but after  a while a buzz in the back of his mind reminded him that they had to get back to the others. Jean’s shakes had subsided for the moment, his confidence not beaming but starting to glow as they walked back past the receptionist with a little more decorum than before. Jean tried to hide their clasped hands from the people they passed on the corridors, but the way he squeezed them together, or tickled Marco’s little finger with his own was enough to reassure them both that nothing was misunderstood.

The others were waiting for them, a disgruntled Ymir and Christa in tow by now and a grouching Claudine stuck to Armin’s jacket. The minute she caught sight of her father, however, Claudine’s frown morphed into a smile. She called out for him gleefully, legs kicking like she was trying to walk, and Armin handed her over without a complaint. Jean dropped Marco’s hand to draw Claudine against his chest, but gave Marco a quick smile as payment. The nervous churning in Marco’s stomach, for the moment, settled.

“They say she’s gan be in for a wee while,” Ymir announced, “seein’ as they wanna keep an eye on the bab. Should be out by tomorrow night though.”

Marco tried to keep his smile on the less giddy end of the spectrum. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. “That’s great,” he said. “Thank god for that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, praise fuckin’ Jesus and all that shite.” Ymir drew a hand through her hair, playing at the strands rather like Jean did when he was in a big crowd. “Now, we dropped the bairn, it’s three in the fuckin’ morning and I wanna sleep. If it’s alright with the rest of ye, I’m doin’ that.”

Marco frowned a little as he looked between the group. “Is Sasha okay with that?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t want to leave her on her own…”

“Who said she’s on her own?” Mikasa asked, a knowing smirk playing across her face.

Eren decided to take a more direct approach. “Yeah, I don’t think she and Con’ have stopped eating each other’s faces for the past hour,” he remarked. “We could be goats and she wouldn’t notice. Think we’re off the hook.” He looked over his shoulder at Armin, as if to clarify it with him, and Armin gave an encouraging smile. Eren nodded. “Yeah, off the hook. ‘Cus I’m not like you nocturnal losers, I need to fuckin’ sleep.”

“What happened to the Eren I met at uni, eh?” Marco asked, grinning at the way Eren stuck his nose in the air and flushed at the thought. “He stayed out til the sun came up, in someone else’s bed every night-”

“I HAVE REGRETS, MARCO.”

They all began to filter out of the hallway, poking their heads into the ward to wave silent goodbyes to Sasha and Connie. When Marco stuck his head around, he realised that Eren was very much right. They may not have been kissing, but he could have walked in naked and nothing would have torn their eyes from each other as they talked quietly. The only instant Sasha noticed him was when he stepped away from the door. “Hey, Marco?”

He was back in the room like a shot. “Yeah?”

“You goin’ now?”

“Mmhmm.”

He should have known that the smile on her face was a sly one. “Did you get to use the thing I slipped you?”

The blush that shot to his face burned like a fever as he spat out a “NO”, shutting the door amid her manic cackles. She was clearly well enough to start making jibes about his sex life, so she really was going to be absolutely fine.

Once he met back up with the others outside, he was blind to anyone but Jean. He called out random goodbyes and hoped they hit the right people, but it was Jean he was looking for. He found him stood with Armin and Eren, trying to keep a hold of a very wriggly Claudine. Quite obviously, the joy at the sight of her father had well and truly worn off, and she was starting to pine for her lost sleep. Before Marco could ask how they were going to get her back, Armin piped up that he could take Jean home in his car. Jean glanced at him, wordlessly wondering if it was a good idea, and Marco shrugged. “You trust Armin, right?”

“S’not Armin I don’t trust, his car is a shit heap,” he muttered.

“I can retract my offer, you know.”

Thankfully, Armin was giving Eren a ride anyway (when Marco offered Sasha’s empty bed to him, Eren went uncharacteristically coy and fiddled with his sleeves more than usual) so was heading in a similar direction. Coupled with his caring nature, there really was no way he could say no. Marco held back the hug he wanted to give before Jean was bundled into the back of Armin’s Mini Metro, a car that may have been a ski slope in a past life if its colour and amount of dents were anything to go by. He just smiled, waved, mouthed a ‘see you later’ and headed back to his bike, trying to keep that warm air inside him before he inevitably thought too much about it and deflated.

A text he got about a second later made his stomach do the exact opposite.

 ** _From: Jean_**  
\- _Come back to mine  
-If you want that wasn’t meant to sound like you have to_

Marco couldn’t help it. The warmth seeped through his veins like it hadn’t for years, filling the long-barren channels that were all but dried up. It felt _good._ It felt… right, whatever Jean said about it. But above all, it was _terrifying._ Marco bit around his smile as he unchained Bertha and swung a leg over. For once, though, the terrifying was something he could live with. Whatever weight those few words held on his screen, he was willing to find out just what they were heavy with.

The journey to Jean’s house was full of nothing but thoughts, jumping out at him from every nook and cranny he passed with a roar of Bertha’s engine. They lurked in the shadows, his doubts and misgivings about himself curling around street corners. They didn’t cut as lonely a silhouette as they usually did, and as usual his mind fell back clattering into the bottom of a pill pot. He gritted his teeth and pushed Bertha to higher speeds, wondering if the winding way she jerked forward was enough to knock the toxicity out of his mind.

When he turned down Jean’s road, the thoughts were bottled. Marco could see that Armin had gotten there before him; he narrowly avoided the pavement just as Armin’s Metro gave a cough of acrid smoke and died. Armin fell out of the driver’s seat to give its bonnet a kick. “Having trouble?” he asked, removing his helmet and wrinkling his nose at the smell he was met with. He didn’t know cars like Marlow, but he was pretty sure they weren’t meant to smell the way Armin’s did.

“It’s a piece of junk,” Armin said as if that clarified everything, giving it another kick for good measure. “I knew the guy who sold it to me was pedalling a write-off.”

“I’d help, but I’m useless.” Marco left his helmet swinging on the bike’s handle and jogged over to give it a once over. As predicted, he was completely stumped. Marlow, however, would know what was wrong simply by looking at it. He had a talent for things like that. Humans were harder for him. “Marlow could fix it up, you know. Bring it to the shop, he’d be happy to look it over. He needs a hobby.”

Armin made a face. “Maybe, but I don’t think there’s much life left in it. Probably not worth how much it’d cost. Poor little thing.” He tapped its headlight lovingly. “And I need it for work. Might be able to drop it off on a weekend.” He then gave a little twitch like he’d remembered something, and squinted at Marco. “What are you doing back here?”

Marco opened his mouth to respond, hoping beyond hope that his blush kept to itself, but before he could think of something besides the truth, he heard Jean speak up from behind him.

“He left something at mine. He’s come to pick it up.”

Marco turned to see Jean wrestling with an energetic Claudine, looking a little more ruffled than usual from the bumpy car journey. Claudine, however, seemed unperturbed by her potential brush with death, and was babbling quietly into Jean’s collar. She was more hushed in her noises than usual, and it was as though she realised how late it was. _Or how early,_ Marco reminded himself with an inner groan. Armin was bound to notice the fond smile cast his way, but Jean didn’t seem quite as jumpy around him. He stepped towards Marco and leant into his space with a short huff, and Armin’s brow couldn’t have risen higher. It was quite obvious that Jean’s lie was not believed. Armin said nothing, however, just gave a careless shrug and ducked back into the car to see if it would start up again. Amid the yells of encouragement Eren was giving the Metro, it stalled twice more before popping into a dull rattle. “YAY,” Eren shouted from the backseat, launching himself across the tiny space to flop into the passenger side and press his face to the window. “So long, assfucks, I’m gonna get me some shut-eye in an apartment that doesn’t have a hole in the roof!”

Marco snorted. The suspicion that Eren would be staying with Armin was well and truly confirmed. “Happy sleepover, Eren. Play nice with the other kids.”

Armin rolled his eyes as he finally got into the driver’s seat. “I hope he passes out,” he whimpered.

“Don’t worry, he will.”

 Jean hoisted Claudine up a little further on his hip to wave a thanks to Armin as they pulled away, and then his eyes wandered to Marco. Marco watched as they widened- just a little bit. “Uh, do you… did you wanna come in? Like I said, I didn’t want to make you think you had to.”

Marco swallowed back the little bottle of doubts and smiled. “I know I didn’t have to, Jean. I wanted to.”

That was enough to get Jean blushing. “Uh, r-right, okay, er… yeah come in,” he said, fishing his keys out of his bag and stepping up to his door. Marco followed obediently behind, wiggling his fingers at Claudine from where she was peeking over Jean’s shoulder. She giggled.

There was a strange kind of weight that fell between them as they entered Jean’s house one after the other. Jean turned around a few times in his way to the living room like he wanted to say or do something, but the second he got close enough, he turned away with a bite of his lip and a stumble to his step. It was like a pendulum was swinging back and forth in the space separating them, knocking them away before they could reach one another. Marco felt it too; even as they got into the living space and Jean started to jig Claudine on his hip to get her to sleep, Marco didn’t feel like he could get too close. Everything felt different; it was like stepping out of an ocean and falling into something deeper, denser.

 _Something full of far more dangerous creatures,_ he thought.

He contented instead to looking around the room, his eye being caught in particular by the canvas Jean had propped on his easel. It was half done, with the paint of the background already blended and flecked together like intricate feathers on a bird’s wing, but it was the subject that made him pause. It was the figure of a man, sat backwards on a chair, and it made his breath catch. That pose was all too familiar to him. The features had been sketched in lightly, something that Jean would no doubt go over later and make more prominent before he started painting, but if he squinted, he could see the unmistakeable line of a scar through the figure’s brow. He wouldn’t have been able to keep his jaw from going slack if he’d wanted to. He couldn’t speak- just glanced back to where Jean was stood, trying to get his daughter to sleep. He felt his chest hiccup when he realised that Jean had been watching him the entire time. “J-Jean…” he began.

“I told you, didn’t I? Y-you’re a good subject to draw, and I need to practice.” He tried to shrug it off, but the colour of his cheeks gave him away.

Marco looked back to the canvas. “I’d like to see it finished,” he said.

Jean blinked. “You do?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Guess not.” Jean blew out a puff of air and turned to the cot, lowering Claudine into it as tenderly as he could manage. The quiet didn’t last long- a cry pierced the room the moment she found herself horizontal, and Jean let out a groan. “Princess, come _on,_ please sleep…”

“Try the music box.” Marco crossed the room and picked it up from its place beside Jean’s futon, and wound it up with a gentle hand. Jean backed off when he drew closer, but Marco could feel the burn of Jean’s gaze on his back as he turned to the cot. The music that trickled out like a babbling brook silenced Claudine’s cries, and she started to arch her head to look for it. “It’s right here sweetie,” Marco murmured, showing her the way the little dial was rotating around and around on its infinite cycle, and once she was satisfied he wound it up fully and placed it on the windowsill next to her. As it played, he let a hand hang down into Claudine’s cot, playing with the thick whorl of hair on her head with a smile.

“There we go, it’s time to sleep now. It’s sleepy time for Daddy too, and the sooner you sleep, the sooner the morning comes.” Claudine blinked her large eyes up at him, the same galaxies in her eyes that belonged in her father’s, and Marco felt his heart swell as she leaned into his touch with a very small sigh. “That’s right, and when the morning comes he’ll be right here. And you can tell him all about what you did when you were dreaming, yeah?” She snuffled in answer, and Marco’s smile grew as he saw her eyelids droop. “Night Princess,” he mumbled, Jean’s pet name for her sweet on his tongue, and her eyes finally shut.

When he looked up from the cot, he noticed Jean shuffling into the kitchen. He hesitated, before curling a finger against Claudine’s cheek one more time and pulling away. He wasn’t sure how this worked, how Jean wanted to proceed- but he had to try. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he walked the length of the room to get to the kitchen, popping his head around the door first to see Jean in the middle of filling the kettle. He waited for him to finish, and wandered in once the kettle was set down and there was no chance of an accident. He needn’t have worried; Jean turned on instinct, and let his face soften when he saw how shyly Marco was stood in the doorway. “I was going to make us something,” he said, turning back to the kettle. “I haven’t got much, a-and my coffee tastes like shite. I g-got peppermint tea, o-or maybe some hot chocolate if I can remember where I put the-”

“Peppermint’s fine,” Marco said, pushing off the door with his shoulder and taking another step into the kitchen. Jean was nervous, that much was obvious; he couldn’t keep his eyes on Marco for too long, though every time he did those eyes of his covered every inch like he was committing him to memory. He was nervous, but there was no reluctance in his body language. Marco took a breath to resurface. “I think Claudine’s asleep now,” he said, “I think the music box helped.”

“It always helps,” Jean replied, taking a teabag and sticking it into the cleanest mug he could find. “She likes music. Takes after me for that, I guess.”

“Mmm.” Marco took a step closer. “Jean?”

There was a twitch where Jean hadn’t realised how close he was. “Yeah?”

Marco slowly, carefully, placed a hand on his waist. Another twitch. He withdrew his hand, but the frustrated noise that came from Jean made him try again. This time, Jean relaxed. Marco let out a sigh. He handled Jean like he would spook and take off like a frightened bird, his touch as light as he could manage, and as he stroked his thumb against the thick wool of Jean’s jumper, the spoon was nearly dropped. “I meant it, you know. I’ll take this as slowly as you want. It’s all at your pace, okay? You’re in control. You have the reins.” He saw the way Jean gulped back a lump in his throat, and leaned in closer. “I don’t want you to ever feel uncomfortable, and if you do, you have to tell me,” he said, wanting so desperately to snuggle into the curve of Jean’s neck but holding back in case he wasn’t ready. Jean didn’t _do_ physical. There were times that he did, times that more often than not involved Marco, but those were fleeting. It was like he would break apart if handled by the wrong person, and Marco was adamant he would not be among the list of many.

There was a pause, then Jean spoke.

“You know the second day we met, the day you called me and we met at Pixis’s Moustache?” he said. When Marco nodded, the movement acknowledged, he continued, “I told you that I don’t fuck guys. A-and that’s true. I don’t. Because I, uh, haven’t. Ever fucked a guy, I mean.” He was gripping the spoon in his hand very tightly, Marco noticed, so much so that his arm was shaking. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t _wanted_ to. I asked you because… when you’re drunk, you lose your inhibitions. And I was fucking terrified that someone outside of me would know what I…” he trailed off. He tucked his head into his chest and let out a shaky sigh, shutting his eyes tight and gritting his teeth.

Marco kept stroking his thumb against his waist, keeping every little movement gentle. He knew what Jean was telling him, in a roundabout sort of way. His stomach unravelled, a bolt of relief passing through him as he let himself admit that no, he was definitely not ready for _that_ either. “Jean, that’s okay. I don’t want to rush this. I didn’t come here to push you into bed because you kissed me.” He took the plunge and rested his head on Jean’s shoulder. To his relief, Jean didn’t move. “Not having experience with guys is completely fine. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I didn’t really have a choice,” was Jean’s hushed response.

Marco went quiet at that. He pressed his lips against the spot where Jean’s neck joined his shoulder, and tried to ignore the cold feeling that stole through him. He knew that feeling all too well- the cold iron of a chain that shackled him to a belief system that went against everything he was, and the constant arguments that accompanied it.

He shook himself and squeezed Jean’s waist, earning a soft intake of breath from him. He was more than nervous now, Marco could see it; Jean was so scared, so raw, like the person he wanted to be had only just been let out of a cage and was cowering at the sunlight. All Marco could do was hold him. He had to remind him that he didn’t ever have to go back there again, not if he didn’t want to. That was what prompted him to ask, “Jean, can you turn around?”

As Marco predicted, Jean’s body seized up at the question. “Why?”

Marco bit his lip as he drew back. “Because I really want to kiss you. Can I do that?”

Jean spun around quicker than Marco expected, causing a startled laugh to burst out of his chest. But Jean was nodding, and Marco was pressing himself closer, and then his nails were scratching through the dark fuzz of his undercut as he brushed his lips ever so carefully against Jean’s. Each kiss was a test of faith, and almost instantly Jean would respond by melting against him and bringing a hand up to rest on the side of Marco’s face. Marco just smiled at that, smiled at how brave he was being, and tickled the corners of his mouth with his tongue as reward. The little murmur he drew out of him was enough to send the bird caught in his stomach fluttering, and it was all he could do to stop himself pulling Jean flush against him so there was nothing between them but the heat of their own bodies. He didn’t have to do a thing; Jean’s arms slowly reached around his neck and dragged him back towards the kitchen counter, fingers curling into the hair that had escaped his scruffy bun, and Marco’s senses were roaring.  

Jean’s kisses were like a punch in the throat. They left Marco reeling in their ferocity, his lips burning after each clash, and he cupped a hand to Jean’s face to get him to slow down, easing him into a slower rhythm. Maybe it was fear that gave Marco those fighting kisses, or maybe the extension of Jean’s guilt, but there was an urgency there that he realised wouldn’t go away for a while. Jean’s stability, his lifelines, had never stuck around for very long. That was bound to leave a scar, however pale and healed, but as Marco broke the kiss and ducked his head to the side to plant a few small kisses to the underside of Jean’s jaw, he hoped his lips were the soothing balm Jean needed. A small whimper came when he nuzzled against the curve of his jaw, and Marco asked humbly for permission before ducking down lower, peppering Jean’s skin with little half-kisses that made the whimpers only increase in volume. Jean needed to be handled carefully. Marco could do careful.

Jean ducked his head to reach Marco’s mouth again and tightened his grip on his hair as he dared to run his tongue along the swell of his bottom lip, letting a sigh free when Marco’s tongue slid over his without hesitation. He clutched tighter, drinking in every little gasp Marco gave at the feeling of his hair being tugged and played with, and with a jolt of warmth Marco soon realised that Jean was grinning into the kiss. When they pulled apart they were both gasping, but still Jean’s hands threaded their way through his hair, the movements slowly loosening the bun until he pulled the tie free. Those fingers continued to comb their way through Marco’s hair, and he shut his eyes at the feeling. “Y-you look good with your hair down,” Jean commented, toying with the longer strands of hair with an absent smile. “I mean, you look g-good with your hair _up_ too, but I don’t see you with it down that often.”

Marco let a pleased hum rumble up from his throat as he brushed his lips against Jean’s brow- just because he could. “Thank you. You’re pretty amazing yourself.”

The strangled noise that came out of a flustered Jean’s mouth sounded a lot like a ‘no’ as he buried his face in Marco’s jumper.

Marco laughed. “Oh, you disagree?”

“Mmfl.”

Marco laughed again. “I think it might be time to go to bed, seeing as the sun will be up soon.”

Jean made a noise of agreement, but didn’t let go of Marco’s neck. As they stood there, Marco was sure he could stay there for hours just to feel Jean so close to him- but he was also very, very tired. “You want me to carry you?” he asked eventually, chuckling at the way Jean bumped their noses together to get at his lips again.

“Mmm if you could pick me up, but I call bullshit on tha- MARCO.” Without warning, Marco had got his hands around the tops of Jean’s thighs and lifted him up, the arms around his neck acting as an anchor to the rest of Jean’s body. Almost immediately, Jean’s legs clamped to his body, crossing over at the back in a way that made Marco blush, and he let out a strained laugh when he started to walk them back through the doorway to the living room. After all, he could say that he was happy to take it slow, but his dick might have something to add to the discussion if he wasn’t careful.

The lights still weren’t working in the living room, a fault Marco recalled Jean saying the landlord would sort later that week, but the window was starting to filter in beams from the rising sun. Marco would have complained about it if he was on his own, cursing the fact that he’d be kept up all night again by the pills’ side-effects and his own panicky heart, but he couldn’t bring himself to say a word with Jean’s skinny form wrapped around him. He really _was_ light, too light to be healthy, and that realisation brought Marco’s lips nestling against the side of his head. If he could help it, he would. He would help. It was all he knew how to do.

Jean said nothing, trying not to squeeze around him too much when Marco reached the edge of the futon and gently lowered them both onto it with a huff of effort, but when he trailed a hand through Marco’s hair again from where they lay, Marco on top of him with his hands framing his head, he looked like he did when he was asleep. Worry-less. It settled on his face happily, like it wanted to be there, and Marco smiled when he got another kiss on the chin as payment. “I’m glad you dragged me out of that river,” Jean said in a hushed voice, nuzzling his head against Marco’s chest out of nerves. “M’glad you stopped me walking out in front of that bus. I’m glad for everything.”

Marco smiled, and rolled off him to lie beside him, letting out a breathy laugh when Jean turned to face him. “Don’t get sappy on me now, that’s most unlike you.”

Jean, remarkably didn’t bite. He wrinkled his nose in distaste, but said, “Maybe I’m more of a romantic than I realise.”

“Now that _is_ worrying, huh?”

Jean cracked a smile, shuffling closer to incite another gentle kiss. Even in the chill of the house, he was warm, though the trembles didn’t fade. If anything, they increased with every touch, every gasp, every noise Marco wheedled out of him, and when they pulled away Marco made sure to look him over. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Jean paused before he nodded. “I’m okay,” he said, a little quieter than before. “I just… it’s not going to go away, Marco.”

Marco sighed. That was the thing: Jean’s fear was palpable, a dark monster lurking at the foot of his bed waiting to pounce, and it would take some time before it got beaten back. “I know,” he said, running a hand down his quaking sides. “I know what it’s like to be scared. I was terrified when I realised I was in love with Thomas.”

Jean avoided his eye. “It’s not like this is a first time realisation,” he mumbled.

Marco’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?” When Jean didn’t respond, Marco moved away a fraction, just to look at him. In the blushing light from the window, Jean didn’t have the look of gaunt fear about him. He simply looked open, his eyes still cast down like he couldn’t bring himself to be looked in the eye. He knew the look of past heartbreak when he saw it. Marco wanted to say something to pierce the silence falling over them, the discomfort strange coming from the one person he always felt safe around, but there was nothing. What could he say? When he’d realised that his feelings for Thomas were far more than platonic, he spent an entire day working himself out of a panic attack. His own monster still flexed its claws.

He reached out and brushed a thumb against the edges of his undercut, waiting until the shakes subsided a little before brushing his lips against his temple. “You’re doing fine, Jean,” he murmured, smiling at the way Jean snorted. “You are. You didn’t scream your feelings at me at a hundred decibels, for one thing.”

Jean paused. “Oh god, did you really-?”

Marco chuckled. “Guilty as charged. How Thomas put up with me I’ll never know.”

“I know why,” he mumbled, reaching for a hand to hold in the dawn light, and Marco took it without hesitation, slotting his fingers between Jean’s as he listened. “Because you’re kind. You’re so kind it makes me sick. You see the potential in everyone. You’re clever, and funny, and you read the books I give you like they’re made of gold.” Jean hesitated, then reached up to drop a kiss on the very tip of his nose. “And, _fuck_ , you’re so _hot_.”

Marco couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him. Jean squeaked and buried his face in his collar, curling himself up tighter and tighter the more playful pokes Marco dealt him. “Heyyy, come out of there,” he grinned, poking his tongue between his teeth when Jean finally re-emerged, red-faced and sheepish. “You really think I’m hot?” he asked as Jean hid his face again, a pained groan of embarrassment emanating from him. He didn’t miss the feel of a nod against his chest. “Now that’s not fair, if you can call me hot and I can’t call you-”

“I’m _not_ amazing,” Jean blurted.

“I know something you are.” Marco ducked his head lower with a grin so his mouth was hovering inches from Jean’s ear as he murmured, “You’re beautiful, my River Boy.” This time, the shudder that ran through Jean’s body was very clearly a good one, the soft hum that accompanied it only serving to clarify it. Marco smiled against his cheek, and kissed the patch of skin underneath his ear. “I’ll say it every time you need to hear it,” he whispered, kissing the spot again. “River Boy, River Boy, River Boy, until you’re sick of hearing it.”

Jean let out another soft noise and rolled over, taking Marco’s hands and guiding them around his waist. “Don’t ever stop,” he whispered, resting his hands on Marco’s as they lay there. Marco tried not to seem too desperate for contact, but got dragged closer regardless until they were pressed together, every rise and fall of Jean’s chest sending sparks up his arms and urging him to press that little bit closer, kiss just one more spot, until Jean was practically purring in his arms. He hadn’t ever felt Jean so warm before.

Jean fell asleep quickly, his breathing soon slowing to a gentle, wheezing sound that reminded Marco of just how cold it was bound to get in the house. He also realised that they lacked one of the three blankets Jean tended to cocoon around himself. Claudine probably had it instead. Jean didn’t care about his own health; so long as Claudine was alright, nothing else mattered to him. He made sure to keep close to him, potential morning wood be damned, and hoped his fevered body would be able to keep Jean at a comfortable level of warmth.

He sighed as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. After plucking a hand free from Jean’s grasp (with some difficulty, as he was given a tiny moan of distaste and a grumpy shuffling that narrowly avoided his groin) he unlocked it to see a message from Eren screaming across his home screen.

 **_From: Eren GAYger  
_ ** _\- THE FUKIN BITCH AINT DEAD IM SO ANGRY FUK U MRS PRESNUT AND ALL U STAND FOR_

Marco sniggered, and dropped the phone on the floor next to the futon, curling back into Jean’s body with a sigh. Life went on. It wouldn’t stop for them, wouldn’t trickle away slowly like treacle but rather pour away like tap water before they could blink. Sasha was still in the hospital. Eren still had HIV. Homophobes still walked the planet. But for a few hours, Marco figured he deserved to be selfish.

He drew the rumpled blankets up over them, tucking them around Jean’s lithe form as carefully as he could without waking him up, and wrapped his arms back around him. The trapped heat was a welcome relief as it trailed up his toes. They were okay. For once, everyone was okay. He let slide the mundane thought that sleeping in their clothes probably wasn’t the best idea in the world; instead he nestled closer, held Jean the way he needed to be held, and tried not to think about the lack of sleep that was sure to ruin him in the coming hours.

After all, if it meant falling asleep with his arms around Jean, Marco was quite happy being ruined.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohoho Marco u be careful with your wording boyo ( ͡° ͜ ʖ ͡° )
> 
> I was gonna put you guys on a cliffhanger again but I was nice


	16. You & Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, it's that time again: SFS time yaaaay  
> We're getting into the nitty gritty now, and with a segment of Jean's past walking right back into the present, the ripples feel like whipcracks...
> 
> I want to thank you all again for reading, supporting my fic and just generally being awesome. It means a lot. Having a full time job makes uploading slow, I know, but you guys are sticking with me and I appreciate that so much <3 so hold onto ur butts
> 
> As always, you can find my tumblr here: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com if you want to screech in my inbox instead of on here: I try to answer every single one I receive! :D
> 
> And, well...enjoy...

That first week spent with Jean was golden. Marco was never one for the clichés, but when the clichés fell into reality there was no other way to describe them. Moments were held together by golden thread, and Marco relished every little inch. He handled them carefully, keeping his touches gentle and drawing away in the wake of twitches and stammered apologies, and bit by bit things began to soften. That wasn’t to say that this thread didn’t have knots along the way.

When they woke up the morning after the hospital visit, Claudine’s cries ringing in their ears, Jean froze. When Marco shuffled, he flinched. Before he could jerk himself free Marco drew his arms tighter around him, still drunk on sleep. Jean’s pulse beat a terrified song against his fingertips, and the realisation made him frown. “Jean,” he mumbled, still groggy from the slumber he’d been yanked from, “your daughter is awake.”

At the sound of his voice, Jean curled in on himself with a barely audible sigh. When Marco peered over him, he saw that his eyes were tightly shut, like he was trying to trap the moment behind his eyelids. Marco turned him over inch by inch, nuzzled a spot under his jaw, and the eyes opened. The burning irises quelled their fires, and Jean was still. For a moment, the world was calm again. Then Jean wriggled out from Marco’s attention and saw to Claudine, grumbling about his lack of sleep. Marco would take the bruised feeling in his lids every day if he got to see Jean’s hair sticking up on end like it did that morning.

He had to go to work; Marlow had given him grace, but expected him to turn up. Jean asked him to come back. Marco didn’t need to say anything. The short, conscious kiss they shared on Jean’s doorstep, and the sight of Marco’s Spiderman shirt cloaking Jean’s slender body, was enough answer for both of them. He trailed through work in a happy daze, fixing more watches and clocks and touching up some of the more battered pieces with thoughts only for what awaited him back at Jean’s house. Marlow’s taunting intensified that day, but after Marco had walked into the globe for the second time, he thought it rather justified. “You look like you ate a bucket of marshmallows last night and you’re only just on the come down from the sugar rush,” Marlow commented as Marco retreated to his work station, rubbing the sore spot. “That or, y’know, you got laid.” Marco’s raised brow quickly shut him up.

He went back to the apartment to feed Batman after Marlow excused him, grabbed a few extra clothes (and a handful of pill pots to be on the safe side) and turned Bertha in the direction of Jean’s without looking back. By the fourth day, Marco was getting texts from Sasha asking if she had to start renting out his room again, and MIA messages from Eren. The questions, and taunts, went unanswered.

Sharing space with Jean had never been difficult. Now, in fact, it was easier. Marco had never realised just how much tension had been pressing around them, the gap closing quicker and quicker like a booby trap, and now it was gone he felt light. Jean remained heavy. He was still nervous. His eyes stayed hollow with the unspoken repercussions of being with Marco, taunted by the ghosts of voices, but Marco was patient. After the incident at the hospital, Jean’s kisses became more careful. He kept them small, brushing the corners of Marco’s mouth before pulling away to ask for more. More often than not, he pulled away to fuss over Claudine or continue sketching. The kisses were usual, frequent, like Jean was dipping toes into the waters of his own mentality, and these kisses were what sent sparks to Marco’s gut. The kisses were so fleeting that he felt as though they were being crammed in before it was too late. Jean was testing himself but didn’t believe it would work- and he was _trying_ , he was trying so hard…

Jean broke the kissing habit a few days later.

The clouds that threatened to break over the city finally burst their banks as Marco left work that day. The raindrops were fat and dropped like pebbles, exploding on the pavements with audible _plops_. Having left Bertha at Jean’s, Marco was forced to run back, ducking his head in an effort to escape the torrent. Jean left the door unlocked when he knew Marco was due to finish work, so when he arrived at the house Marco barged right on in, scattering the drops clinging to the lapels of his leather jacket and spluttering from the cold.

Jean was stood by the window, steam rising from the mug in his hands, and as Marco stumbled down the hallway and into sight he spun around in alarm. His eyes softened. He was wearing another one of his oversized jumpers the colour of oatmeal, complete with paint splattered jeans that were a little tighter than usual. Marco’s brain tried not to short circuit, but he couldn’t help the way he dragged his eyes up Jean’s form with a blush. He thought back to when he’d first seen Jean, and thought he was comprised of angles and sharp lines. He’d never seen him so softened.

“So it’s raining,” he blurted out a second later, the first eloquent thought his brain offered.

Jean snorted. “I can see. You’re dripping a puddle onto my floor.”

Marco looked down. “Shit.”

Jean quirked a smile as he set his mug down and walked over, his stride still hesitant. He paused, checked himself, then reached up to thread his fingers through Marco’s soaked hair. He was always so careful and deliberate, his hands so soft and reverent that it made Marco smile. “Scruffy,” he mumbled, and Marco let his smile grow. Jean tilted his head up and pressed their foreheads together, eyes sliding shut at the feeling of Marco’s cold against his warmth. “Did you have a good day at work?”

Marco chuckled. “Are we getting domestic so soon?” he asked against Jean’s lips, the damp smell of the rain mingling with oil paint as he nuzzled their heads together.

“You’re the one putting bread on the table, you have no one to blame but yourself.” Jean’s nose wrinkled. “You’re all wet,” he complained, butting his head back. “Go get a towel from the bathroom, you heathen.” Marco leaned closer and brushed their lips together, but Jean pulled away with a splutter. “T-Towel!” he protested.

Marco whined but shed his jacket and shuffled into the bathroom. He came back still drying his hair, swapping his clothes for some dryer alternatives. Jean had turned back to the window, his mug back in his hand. “Sounds quiet,” Marco said, tilting his head to one side to massage the water out.

“Claudine’s napping,” Jean replied. “She’s also grounded, she nearly ate a tube of watercolour paint today.”

“She’s not even a year old, is she?”

“Still grounded.”

Marco’s laughter fell away as he stepped closer. Jean was distant somehow, drifting like the rain rolling down the window. He was like this when he thought, Marco had noticed, and as Jean brought the mug up to his lips and took a sip, he heard a pained sigh expel itself from his lungs. Something sounded like it was rattling. Marco hoped he wasn’t coming down with anything- it was easy with the temperature and weather caught in a strange limbo. He gave a passing glance into the cot where the disgraced Claudine was sleeping. The blankets were tucked under her chin and she was sleeping soundly, eyelids flickering as she dreamed, and Marco let a hand drop down into the cot to stroke her cheek. When he looked back, Jean was watching him. He cleared his throat. “I missed you,” he said.

Jean’s ears flushed. “You only went to work,” he stated, but the thickness to his voice made Marco go to him. He looked paler than usual. Jean hadn’t been out of the house since the hospital. People were, apparently, too much for him at the moment. People didn’t include Marco.

“But I did.” Marco inched his arms, bit by bit, around Jean’s waist. He didn’t feel Jean’s body tense like it had earlier that week.

“Guess I’m just not used to being missed,” Jean replied.

He nearly choked on his drink when Marco wrapped his arms around him fully, resting his chin on Jean’s shoulder to look out at the world beyond their walls. Marco knew he liked being held like this, knew it by the way he would relax and fall into the corners and curves of Marco’s body like he belonged there, and smiled when he did just that. “You’re beautiful,” Marco sighed, like that clarified everything.

“No, I’m not.”

Marco shrugged. “Opinions are opinions. You don’t see what I see.”

“Mmm.” Jean leaned back into the embrace, hands still clutching at the mug like a lifeline, but there was an absent smile on his face. The blush was spreading to his cheeks. “You keep believing that, Marco.” The way Jean said his name was exactly how someone else would have called him ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’, and it made Marco’s chest warm.

The silence fell between them again, and Marco turned his head to breathe in the comforting smell of Jean’s washing powder, his shampoo, his soap. He was worried how quickly it was becoming home. Jean shivered at the treatment, taking a last shaky sip before setting the empty mug down. His hands drifted across Marco’s and stayed there, solid and stable, and Marco let out a small, satisfied hum. “What are you looking at out there?”

Jean heaved out another rattling sigh. “Watching the rain,” was his response.

“It’s been raining all day.”

“Must have been watching it all day, then.”

“Have you eaten?”

Jean hesitated. “I don’t remember,” he admitted.

Marco made a clucking noise of disapproval. “Have you got beans in the cupboard?”

“Probably.”

“I’ll make some later. Baked beans _a la pain_ , Trost delicacy.” Jean let out a small chuckle, and turned his head to look at him. There was a small frown on his face. Marco mirrored it. “What is it?” Marco prompted.

Jean bit his lip. “Just… do you ever get the feeling that something’s sneaking up on you?” he asked, his fingers creasing against Marco’s. “Like… you try to avoid it, try to keep on going like normal, but it’s still _there_ , waiting for you?”

Marco’s frown deepened. He hated how his mind immediately jumped to the pill pots. If he listened hard enough, he could hear their mocking rattle. He shuddered. He didn’t want to think about it. Maybe this was something Jean thought about a lot, part of his fear of large crowds or big spaces. Jean’s eyes were back on the window, watching the steady thrum of raindrops like bird wings against the glass. Marco gave his waist a slight squeeze. “Can’t say I do, no,” he lied.

Jean sagged. “Thought not,” he said.

Marco nudged his nose against the slope of his neck, brow furrowed as the concern stole through him. Jean wasn’t looking back now, eyes fixed on the outdoors and the dark shapes striding across their eyeline. “Jean, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Jean bit his lip again. He hung his head, gaze directed to the floor as he replied, “I just… this feels too good. Feels like something’s gonna… gonna come back and bite me in the ass, or remind me that it’s only temporary.” Another rattling sigh. There definitely sounded like there was something on his lungs, and the thought sent a flare of worry shooting through Marco’s stomach. “I’m not this lucky, Marco,” Jean said. “I’ve never been lucky.”

“Maybe your luck’s changed.”

The noise Jean made in the back of his throat didn’t sound convinced. Marco frowned, and kissed a patch of skin just under his ear. “Well, whatever’s sneaking up on you,” he said, kissing the spot again, “I won’t let it get too close.” He then started to pattern his kisses across Jean’s jaw, reaching his cheek as he murmured between kisses, “I… promise… nothing… can… hurt you…”

Jean was thawing with the treatment, his head tilting into the kisses with those same broken little sighs, and Marco felt the grip on his hands tighten as he let himself give in. His frown was turning into a smile, the teeth digging into his lip becoming more playful than worried, and as he reached the side of Jean’s nose he turned, startling Marco with the water collecting in his eyes. His stomach twisted. He had to remind himself that Jean wasn’t used to this level of affection. Maybe it was too much for him, maybe it overwhelmed him. Maybe he was _uncomfortable._

He made to pull away, but Jean kept him in place, gulping thickly. Marco stayed. He didn’t kiss Jean again, in case his doubts were a reality; instead, he slid a hand out from underneath Jean’s to brush an escaped tear away with his thumb. Jean soft hitch of breath made his stomach feel strangely hollow. Jean let his eyes slip shut, hiding the tears from sight, and turned his face to Marco’s. Marco nearly closed his own eyes at the feeling of Jean’s breath on his lips, but he held back. He wanted to have permission, didn’t want to push too far, but Jean sighed again and his mind was made up. “Marco…” he whimpered, a sound almost drowned out by the rain.

Marco closed his eyes. “I know,” he answered.

“Don’t make me s-say it.”

“I won’t.”

He kissed him, and this time he wasn’t pushed away.

Jean quaked to the core, and Marco felt that his single hand around him was the only thing that stopped him from crumbling away completely. He arched his fingers up in a silent invitation, and Jean threaded his own through the gaps, trembling again at the feeling. They kissed lazily, slowly, the way they seemed to do on the evenings when they were both too tired to talk and too wrapped up in one another to sleep. Marco liked those kinds of kisses; they made him think that the world was slowing down with them, giving them all the time in the world to play with as they pleased, and Jean always smiled the brightest after them. This felt different though, and when Jean grazed his teeth against Marco’s lower lip he jolted in surprise.

Jean shrank away, but he chased after him, lips colliding again before they had chance to muffle Jean’s apology. It died in the air above them, mingled with the sound of Jean’s gasps for breath, and when he curled his fingers into Marco’s hair to lever him closer Marco realised that this was _definitely_ a different kiss. Jean was needy, gasping, chasing something in their kisses that Marco couldn’t pinpoint. When he pulled away and mouthed wetly against the side of his neck, Jean let out a soft moan and hollowed his back. He turned in Marco’s arms and kissed him like a suckerpunch, hands flying to his neck to steady himself in the wake of his galloping heartbeat. Marco kept him close, tugging his jumper so they stood flush against one another, and Jean let out a hiss through his teeth.

Marco didn’t let himself get lost in the moment, not entirely; he could still feel Jean’s nerves, his rattling breath, the sharp tugs he gave to his hair as grounding. The thought then occurred to him that Jean was rushing, trying to flood Marco with all the emotion he’d kept inside for so long. It felt panicked. It felt scared. It was like Jean was trying to rush to a finish line without knowing where to run, and he was trying everything to get there. He was kissing him like their time was numbered. Marco let out a sigh into the kiss and pulled away, steadying Jean’s face before he had the chance to dive back in. “Jean,” he said. Jean shook his head and made to move in again. Marco held firm. “ _Jean_.”  

Jean seethed, but didn’t look angry. When he opened his eyes again, they looked desperate. “You can’t protect me,” he said softly. “I’ll fuck this up. I always do. T-this is just… temporary.” He ran a hand down Marco’s cheek, trailing his fingers down the slope of his jaw and brushing a thumb against the scar on his brow as he went. “You can’t save everyone, even if you want to.”

His words echoed Mikasa’s, said what felt like years ago, and Marco bit his lip. “I can try,” he said, reaching down to press his lips against Jean’s forehead as tenderly as he could manage despite the sinking feeling in his chest.

Jean let out a shuddering sigh and buried his face in Marco’s jacket, his shoulders unsteady but his eyes dry. Marco wasn’t sure he believed him, so he kissed him again. And again. And again, until Jean dragged him away from the window and towards the futon. They lay there for a while, kissing and whispering promises that vanished like wisps of smoke in the cold air of the house, before Jean’s panic began to dissolve. The fear wouldn’t leave, Marco reminded himself. No matter how much it was covered up, concealed from view, it was still there, niggling under the surface. Even his fear still flitted across his stomach, poked his heart, caught his lungs- but he was far better at hiding it. He just pulled Jean closer, hoped that his body heat would chase away whatever venom had been fed into his mind, and waited for the feverish rush of Jean’s heart to slow.

* * *

Jean couldn’t seem to shake the drifting, paranoid feeling he’d mentioned to Marco that day. He didn’t mention it again, true, but he didn’t need to; it was too obvious, in his avoidance of the outdoors and the ferocity in which he clung to Marco. Marco wanted to talk about it, wanted to sit Jean down and go through exactly what was going on in his head, but whenever he tried to bring it up, Jean changed the subject. He was far happier burying his head in the sand. Marco didn’t want to worry, but it was hard not to.

Then again, ignorance was bliss. To anyone on the outside, Jean would seem to be trying harder; he started to meet Marco from work, and soon started walking him there too. Marco knew that he would leave early to miss the rush of people, but Marlow barely paid him attention anymore, his gaze flicking up then back down on his entrance to the shop. He even commented once, through a mouthful of pastry that Mikasa had brought them, “You’re not vying for a job are you, coming in here so early?” Jean just shook his head with a polite smile, letting his eyes drift over to Marco as he worked. If Marlow was making a comment about it, it really was better hidden than Marco anticipated.

No one else noticed the way Jean always appeared pale-faced and teeth gritted with Claudine slung across his chest. No one else saw how Jean only relaxed when his hand was in Marco’s, and they slipped into the crowd together.

He was jerky around the crowds for a brand new reason, too. Whenever they mingled with the suits and ties of the city, he pulled their joined hands behind his back as they walked, head dropping down with shame dusting his cheeks instead of flustered happiness. Marco just squeezed his hand, encouraging him on, and kept on walking. He tried to ignore the vague ache of disappointment at every shielding of their hands or averting of Jean’s eyes. He had to be sensible. Jean hadn’t been ‘out’. He still wasn’t ‘out’. He wouldn’t be ‘out’ until he was comfortable with it. He was new to it all, just like Marco had been once, and he’d been given patience- Jean deserved the same. So Marco exercised caution at all moments, gauged how relaxed Jean was in public and changed to match without a sound. It was emotionally exhausting, but he pushed on, reminding himself that it would get better and to stop being so selfish.

The wheezing in Jean’s chest cleared up after a few days of being outside. Marco was sure now that there was too much dust in the house, and that was what kept getting in his lungs, but Jean waved it off with a scoff. “This city’s just getting to me, that’s all,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”

And it wasn’t. Because his smiles came back, less distracted and ghost-like than before. His kisses stopped being so rushed. He laughed more. Marco couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He was getting there, slowly but surely, and Marco was there to help him along if he needed it.

One morning, Jean blurted that he needed more supplies for his artwork. Marco looked up from his book. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Jean rubbed his arm as he looked back to his canvas. His paints had been squeezed clean of every last drop, skeletons of their former selves. “S’no way I can water ‘em down further without someone noticing acrylic looks too much like watercolour, so. Time to give my bank account a beating.”

“I’ll come with you,” Marco offered, trapping his finger between pages. “I could use the walk.” He didn’t want to admit it was because he needed to stop by his house and grab more pills. He really hoped Jean hadn’t heard him being sick. The bathroom was on the upper floor… he _might_ have gotten away with it. He looked back to Claudine’s cot to take his mind off it, and noticed a very determined look on the occupant’s face as she tried to lift herself up with the help of the bars. “What about you, sweetie? Wanna go for a walk?” Claudine appeared not to have heard him, far too focused on her fruitless task, but he took the little snuffling noise she made a moment later as a ‘yes’.  “Come on then,” Marco said, picking her up under the arms with a smile, “better get you in your contraption of doom.”

“Actually, I uh… wondered if you wanted to wear it for a change.”

Marco blinked. “R-really?”

Jean shrugged. “I mean it’s not some massive honour. I just… you haven’t done it before.” He shrugged again.

Marco smiled. “I’d love to do it.”

Jean flushed hotly as he scampered away to get the carrier, and Marco’s laughter rang after him. “Do I honestly make you that flustered so easily?” he asked when Jean returned.

“Y-es,” Jean replied, instructing Marco to lift up his arms to get the first straps in place. “You have a way with words, Bodt, it’s not fucking fair.”

Marco snorted. “Doubt it.” He dived for a small kiss as Jean stood before him to adjust the carrier, and earned a babble of gibberish and a smack on his arm. “Aw c’mon, you really hate kissing me that much?” he teased.

“Marco, don’ttttt,” Jean whined, turning back to him with pleading written on his face.

“I’m not doing anything,” Marco said.

“Bullshit, you’re grinning like the fucking Cheshire Cat.” Jean strayed back to wrap another strap around Marco’s waist and secure it at his back. “You know what your kisses do to me.”

“It’s always nice to hear it aloud, though. With coherent words.”

Jean planted a stroppy kiss to Marco’s cheek, still bright red as he took an excitedly squeaking Claudine from Marco’s hands and gently levered her into the carrier. “Okay, now it’s your turn to see how heavy Sprog can be,” he said, stepping back to admire his handiwork.

Marco had to admit it felt strange. With Claudine’s added weight, it felt even stranger. His hand immediately grabbed for her, a flash of panic bolting through him. “J-Jean!”

“You don’t have to hold her, that’s the carrier’s job.”

“Yes I do! It feels like she’ll fall!” Marco replied, panicked.

“You get used to it.” Jean tightened a strap for good measure as he talked. “She will wiggle, but she can’t go anywhere. Trust me. This thing’s solid as a rock.”

Solid as a rock the carrier may have been, but that didn’t stop the inevitable. Claudine wiggled. She wiggled a _lot_. At her new, taller vantage point she flapped and shrieked in delight at the world going past her. Marco narrowly avoided a punch in the nose from the over excitable baby, and a kick in the groin moments later. Heads didn’t stop turning at Claudine’s gleeful sounds, and though most were adoring faces, Marco kept his head down with a blush heating his cheeks. “I-Is she always like this?” he asked.

“Usually,” Jean replied. “She loses interest eventually.” He smirked. “What, you were the one who thinks she’s adorable.”

“You think she’s adorable.”

“Well… yes, but I have a biological attachment, it’s not the same.” Jean gave Marco’s hand a small pull as he led the way through the milling groups of people, the time in the morning a perfect opportunity for a flare of confidence. “She likes people. Weird considering we’re related.”

Marco groaned as Claudine waved at a group of tittering girls passing them. “You set me up with the friendliest baby ever,” he complained.

“No getting out of it now,” Jean reminded him. “I’m going to my art shop for supplies, and I need to be wiggle free.”

Marco butted Jean’s shoulder with a huff to show his displeasure, and got the second whack of the morning for his trouble. Claudine stopped paying attention to the people and looked between her father and her host, letting a giggle spill free. Jean snorted. “She likes me bullying you,” he said.

“Nah,” Marco ruffled the small knot of hair on her head. “She likes seeing her Daddy smile.”

Jean flushed, and shoved him again. Another giggle. “Definitely likes me bullying you.”

“It’s the smiles, I swear!”

“Only way to find out.” He gave another shove. Marco scoffed and gave a playful elbow back. Claudine’s giggle was louder this time, her hands clapping together as she watched the two of them playfully bump each other down the street with stifled laughter. They kept playing the push-shove-giggle game until they reached the entrance of the covered market. There, Jean stopped mid-laugh. Before Marco could finish his own bout of laughter, Jean’s hand was gone. He felt for it with a sudden frown, but Jean had it shoved into his pocket. Marco swiped for it again, silently asking. When he got no response, he said it in words. “What’s the matter?”

Jean’s eyes had snapped open so wide that Marco could barely see the dark bruises around them. He’d gone completely rigid, scarcely even breathing as he stood there on the pavement. Marco’s frown deepened. Was it the crowds? Had he suddenly been thrown a loop by his traitorous brain? But then he saw that Jean’s eyes weren’t glazed over, but direct, zeroed in on a particular person. He followed his gaze with a curious noise curling in the back of his throat. He straightened up with a jolt, Claudine still in the final throes of giggles on his chest.

It was a girl. More than that, it was a _beautiful_ girl. Marco hadn’t seen her emerge from the crowd, but he imagined her simply materialising, a pretty girl in a crowd of hundreds. She was silhouetted in a dark blue duffel coat, tied at the waist to show just how slight she was, and her heels clacked noisily as she walked. She was unassuming, paying no attention to the monochrome world that swirled past, and though she seemed the type to fit that world, she just… didn’t, somehow. Her faded lilac hair, dark roots poking through, was probably something to do with it, but there was something else too. There was a confidence to the way she walked, a fluidity to the sway of her hips that didn’t match the trudge of people around her. Every stride towards them made Jean blanch that little bit more. Still she paid no attention. Her eyes were on her phone, lower lip poking out as she tapped something out on the keypad. She had almost walked past them when her eyes came up- and met Jean’s.

She stopped with a jolt.

Marco caught sight of the olive green eyes, and remembered. He had seen her before. She was frozen in time, stuck with her arm around Jean and silent laughter falling from both their mouths.

This was Hitch. _The_ Hitch.

For a moment, none of them moved. Marco wanted to reach out to Jean, to tug him closer and remind him where in time he was, but he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to make the first move.

Hitch gave three lazy feline blinks before she recovered. The look of surprise morphed into a kind of sultry smirk, and she took the remaining steps towards them more cautiously. That lilac hair of hers bounced on her shoulders, the curls loose and relaxed, and as she drew nearer Marco noticed the smoky eyes that seemed the artificial version of Jean’s fatigue. He didn’t have time to glance at Jean for an opinion. She was stood before them, tilting her head at Jean with that same smirk on her face, and when he said nothing she chuckled.

“Jean? Is that you? Holy shit, it is isn’t it?” She barked out a short ‘HA’ that made Jean jump. “Oh my god, Jean fucking Kirschtein, what a blast from the past you are! It’s been a long time sugar.” She winked.

Marco didn’t have to look to know that Jean was shaking. He also knew that Jean was doing the maths in his head. _Six months. It had been six months. That wasn’t that long at all._ Jean tried to speak- but it wasn’t working. He opened his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. When it did, it was jumbled and panicky. “H-Hitch,” he wheezed.

“That’s my name, sweetie.”

“W-what are you… why are you…here?”

“I’m a big girl, Jean,” she said, leaning into Jean’s space with a leer that made Jean even paler. “I go where I like.” Her brow arched as she let her smirk become more of a grin. “Besides, could ask you the same question. Out for a little afternoon stroll, are we?” There was a way of elongating every word unnecessarily that Hitch seemed to relish. It made Marco twitch.

“I, uh…” Jean was at a loss. He couldn’t utter a single word whilst he was staring at her; she was blinding him. He shut his eyes to counteract it, and scrunched them tight. “I thought you moved away.”

Hitch didn’t seem to want to talk about that. She ignored him, letting her eyes rake him up and down with the same lazy smirk she’d worn before. She tilted her head again. “You’ve changed your hair.”

Jean gulped, nodded. “So’ve you.” Kept his head down.

“I don’t like it.” Hitch pursed her lips. “Always preferred you brown.”

“I know.” Jean gritted his teeth. “That’s why I changed it.”

Hitch, to Marco’s surprise, laughed. “Oh, the weak constitution of masculinity,” she trilled. “Such a precious thing.” She reached out and trailed a hand down Jean’s cheek, grinning at the way he kept his eyes firmly on the ground. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue, sugar?”

Claudine made a worried sounding whimper from Marco’s chest, and all eyes fell to her. She was looking at her father with a strange level of concern for her age, and she began to squirm with a wail when she saw Jean’s panicked gaze land on her. “It’s okay,” Marco hushed, even though he could feel the pounding in his chest ready to give him away. Perhaps Claudine could feel it, the anger that was building up inside him. He was trying to keep it squashed, but Claudine was still wriggling, still bleating out concerned cries, and reaching out a tiny hand for her father. Jean couldn’t move, even though Marco could tell he wanted to. It broke him a little.

“Oh, look at you,” Hitch said, that same grin dancing across her face. “Daddy’s girl, are we? Want to see Mummy, grown up girl?”

Claudine froze when she saw Hitch reach towards her. Without warning, she let out a cry and twisted her head into Marco’s shirt, gathering some of it into her mouth to suck as she stared suspiciously at the stranger that was her mother. Marco couldn’t help the stab of triumph that rode through him when Hitch withdrew her arms with a frown. “S-she’s not good with strangers,” Jean muttered, and Marco felt his hope rise a little more.

“I’m her mother,” Hitch said.

Marco let out a snort. “Could have fooled me.”

He’d known he should have bitten back the words the moment Hitch rounded on him, eyes narrowing. “And who’s this?” she asked. Jean looked like he was going to be sick. Hitch’s eyes flitted between the two of them, calculating. It didn’t take long for the bell to sound. Her frown vanished. Instead, she looked _delighted._ “Oooooh, you got yourself a boyfriend, Jean? Cute.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder, ignoring Marco completely as she focused everything on Jean. “What’s his name?”

Jean looked _petrified._ “He’s… we’re not… he’s just…”

“His name is Marco,” Marco said, with a tang of bitterness at the way Jean had tried to deny it, “and believe it or not, _he_ can be talked to directly.”

Hitch laughed. “I like him,” she decided, phrasing it more to herself than to Jean, “Bit on the dark and brooding side, though. Why’s he angry at me? What have you told him?” Jean didn’t have the chance to respond. She cut him off with a sigh. “All bad things, I’m sure. Shame. I’m sure if he’d known me before you’d told him all that rubbish he might have liked me. Might have even turned him.”

“I’m bi.”

“Congratulations,” she said dryly. She turned to Marco, cutting Jean out of the conversation, and Marco realised it was probably just the way she was. She couldn’t handle talking to more than one person at once. His temper simmered as he looked down at her with a curled lip, trying to keep calm for Claudine’s benefit but wanting to shout so, _so_ much. “So, you _are_ giving Jean one,” she remarked.

“I’m not giving anyone anything.”

“Aw, probably for the best. Jean ain’t cut out for women, wouldn’t be surprised if he ain’t cut out for men either.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Hitch backed off at the dark look he cast her. She threw her head over her shoulder, glancing over to where Jean stood eyeing his shoes. “Ain’t I right, sweetheart? You ain’t exactly _lover material_ , are you? S’pose it figures, you flippin’ for dick. Becoming someone else’s bitch might actually get you laid.” She grinned.

Jean flinched like he’d been slapped, and it was the final tip to the system that Marco’s temper needed.

He exploded. “How dare you talk to him like that?” he demanded, curling a hand into a fist. He didn’t care if he had Claudine strapped to him; he’d hit her, baby carrier and all.

Hitch was startled into silence for a moment, eyes opening almost comically wide, but then she laughed. It was a low, drawling sound. “Oh honey, if anyone has the right it’s me.”

“No one has a right to talk about anyone that way,” Marco hissed. “You’ve got a kid, show some fucking respect for the person who’s raising her!”

“Marco.” The hand that got to his chest, pushing him back, was Jean’s. He was gaunt, gnawing on his lip so much it was bleeding, but there was a pleading in his eyes. “She’s just messing around. It’s fine.” Marco opened his mouth to argue, but the look was firm. It wasn’t his battle to fight. He had no say in it. He backed down, his glare still fixed on the woman in front of him. _No,_ his brain reminded him, _she’s a girl. She’s Jean’s age. Keep it together. Don’t start raging on a twenty year old girl- don’t give her the satisfaction_.

Hitch took a step back in the heat of Marco’s anger, eyes darting from him to Jean and back again. She let her gaze rest on Jean in the end, shaking her head with a sigh. “Oh, _Jean._ Jean, Jean, Jean. What have you done?”

Marco let his anger step aside for a moment to let confusion get a foothold. He glanced at Jean, then back at Hitch. Hitch looked genuinely distressed. Jean looked like he was close to passing out. Hitch ran a hand through her hair, sighed, looked at them both. Then she delivered the final blow.

“What would your family think?”

The words hit Jean between the ribs like a knife. Marco watch his eyes snap up, bulge like he really did have something sharp sticking out of him in the aftermath of her question. His mouth dropped open, and the look that crossed over his face was nothing short of _horror_.

Marco’s anger vanished in a wisp of smoke, and instead he made to grab for Jean’s hand again, insistent. This time, Jean _recoiled._ Actively recoiled, like Marco would leave a mark. His stomach clenched. “Jean…?” he mumbled. He hated how pathetic he sounded. Jean wouldn’t even look at him; the knife in his chest seemed to twist as he bit his lip, eyes cast to the ground like he was afraid of what would happen if he dared look up. “Jean,” Marco repeated, pleading, _hoping_ his voice would be enough. It was no use. He wasn’t enough to bring Jean back from whatever tunnel of thought he’d fallen into.

Hitch chewed her lip. “Didn’t think about that one, huh?” she asked. The pity in her voice sounded too real for someone who had made Jean’s life a misery. It suddenly occurred to Marco that maybe, in some twisted little way, she did care. For some reason, that made the pit of disgust and anger that was churning around inside him even more acidic. He bit on his tongue when he realised, with mounting horror, that he was _jealous._

Marco shut his eyes with a barely contained growl, snapping them open into a glare. “What does he need to think about? He’s doing fine.”

Hitch laughed again. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Even you’re deluded. And I thought you looked smart.” Marco couldn’t prevent his lip from curling as he glared, wolf-like, at her. Claudine whimpered nervously on his chest, looking between the three adults like they were new to her. Hitch smirked. “What a pair you are,” she said, looking at both him and Jean in turn. The film had lifted from Jean’s eyes now, but still he kept his distance, his body threatening to break apart if the shakes wracking it were anything to go by. Marco knew he couldn’t comfort him, but he stepped closer anyway. Jean gulped, looked at Hitch, looked back at Marco, shook. In a matter of minutes, Hitch had given him a hearty shove backwards. _He’d been doing so well_ , Marco thought with an ache.

“Beauty and the Beast,” Hitch mused. She glanced to Marco. “I’ll let you work out which one is which for yourself, handsome.” Her eyes drifted away then, back over the faceless people to the corner of the street. Pixis’s Moustache. A thoughtful hum escaped her throat. “We should talk, Jean. We didn’t talk before- you just ran and I just shouted. We both deserve a talk.” She reached out a hand to him, eyeing Marco warily. “Best do it away from your lapdog, though. He looks like he might bite.”

Something that wasn’t panic and not quite anger welled up in the back of Marco’s throat, bitter tasting and toxic. He knew what she was doing. She was making Jean choose, putting him on the spot and pitting him against either her or Marco. She may only have been twenty, but she wasn’t stupid. Hitch knew how to play people, Marco thought with a jolt, and she was fully capable of playing him too. Maybe she was waiting on him to get desperate, to beg or plead. She was getting close to succeeding; every part of him, pathetic though it was, screamed at him to just take Jean’s hand and pull him away. Tell him that it was alright, she didn’t know what she was saying, she was saying things that were meant to hurt, to stab, to cut away at the bonds holding his insecurities back. He also, on a less gentle scale, wanted to hit her for everything she’d put Jean through, and everything she was putting Jean through at that moment.

But he couldn’t do any of those things. He just stood there, Claudine whimpering and wailing in the carrier, and reached out a hand to Jean too. _Fine. If she wants to play it this way, this is how it’ll have to go._ “Jean,” he said, his voice strangely weak, “let’s go. Come on, come home.” He almost choked the words out.

_Come home._

_Please don’t listen to her._

_I’m still here, I’ve still got you._

For a moment, he thought he’d done it. He thought he saw Jean’s eyes soften, thought he saw a flicker of his old self back. But then he shut his eyes and shook his head. Something inside Marco shattered for the second time in his life. “M-Marco, I need to… I need to talk to her,” Jean said. “M’sorry, c-can y-you just… look after Claudine for a while?”

Marco wanted to say no. He wanted to be childish and make a fuss in the middle of the crowded street, and the hell with what the commuters around them thought. He wanted to scream, he wanted to shout and curse and beg and cry all at the same time- and he would have, if he thought it would make a difference. But one thing he knew about Jean was that once he made up his mind, he was unlikely to change it. He swallowed back the bile, felt it burn on its way back down, and nodded. “Okay.” He reached down and stroked his thumb against the single finger that Jean had poking out of his pocket. The finger twitched, and he bit his lip. “Please don’t,” he whispered.

He heard Jean suck in breath like he’d been scorched, but then he was stepping away, backing off and watching Jean disappear into the ether with Hitch beside him, linking arms with him, looking over her shoulder and giving Marco a thoughtful look. He wanted to throw something at her.

He managed to reason himself out of it; instead he looked down at Claudine, who looked about as crestfallen as he did, and tried out a smile. “C-come on sweetie,” he said, jigging her up and down in the carrier, “Daddy’s just gone for a little chat with your…” He couldn’t bear to say the word. ‘Mother’ didn’t feel like the right sort of word to use when talking about Hitch. “A-anyway, h-he’ll be back soon, a-and whilst he’s gone we can go see everyone, yeah? You like seeing them, y-yeah?”

Claudine’s worried cries didn’t sound like she believed him. In all honesty, Marco didn’t believe himself either.

* * *

“He did _what_?!”

Marco sighed, and nudged the steaming coffee cup around the island. Going back to his apartment to check on Sasha had turned into a full on recap with Connie and Mikasa along for the ride. They were all practically bouncing when he’d come in, and pounced the moment Claudine was set down in order to get the juicy details. What Marco had to offer, though, hadn’t kept spirits up for long.

“So let me get this straight,” Mikasa said, leaping onto the island to get a better look, “He just bumps into his ex and walks off with her? And leaves you with the baby?”

Marco nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Mikasa exhaled slowly. “Okay, that boy needs a punch in the face.”

“No, he doesn’t!”

“Can’t I hit him just once? I’ll be gentle.”

“No, Mikasa.”

“Violence is never the answer,” Sasha said, offering Marco a spoonful of ice cream as she passed. “Except when you’re Marco and you’re saving someone’s butt. Then violence, violence all the way.”

Marco rolled his eyes but accepted the ice cream. It did little to soothe the nettle sting in the back of his throat as he wondered what Jean was doing, what tale Hitch was spinning him. He hoped Jean wouldn’t listen. He hoped he knew better than that. He rested his chin on his folded arms and let out a low growl of frustration. “This is driving me insane,” he mumbled into his jacket.

“Aw, cheer up big man,” Sasha said, rubbing his arm with a pout, “things’ll be alright again. You’ll see.”

Marco wanted to see. He wanted to peek around the corner and see Jean coming back, shaking Hitch’s comments off with a bad tempered grunt and wrapping himself right back into his arms. But, with a panicked flutter of his chest, Marco didn’t feel like it would end that way. In fact, he couldn’t even imagine it _beginning._ His heavy sigh made Sasha draw away, back to where Connie sat playing with Claudine on the floor of the apartment. Marco spared a glance over to them both, and let a spark of warmth that wasn’t searing anger appear at the way Connie was grinning at Claudine and playing with her feet to make her giggle. Claudine was reaching up to him, giggling and laughing, but after a moment she turned her head to look over to Marco. His heart jolted at the way she smiled, the way her tiny body relaxed when she caught sight of him. _She’s not yours, she’s Hitch’s. She’s not yours, she’s Hitch’s,_ a cruel voice said, coiling around his head like a snake.

“You don’t deserve to be messed around like this,” Mikasa said, cutting into his train of thought, “not after what you’ve gone through.” The savage look he cast her way was vehemently ignored. She just sighed and let her fingers curl into his hair, tangling them in the thick waves like she usually did to calm him down. The sting remained. “Remember what I told you?” she added, her words soft like she was speaking to a child.

Marco remembered. She didn’t want him to be a novelty for someone. Jean wasn’t used to attention- maybe he would make do with what he had until he found what he was looking for? Marco gulped. The chill started again, trickling up and down his spine like rainwater, only serving to feed that tangled nettle. “He’s not like that,” he said firmly.

“Are you sure?” Mikasa pressed. “Are you _sure_ , Marco? Because the first time you met this guy, he told you off for pulling him out of the road.”

Marco huffed. “He said he was grateful for that. He said he was grateful for a lot of things I did for him.”

“Yeah. _For_ him.” Mikasa sighed. “Marco, he has been a little selfish-”

“No he hasn’t, he needed the help.”

“And you were always _conveniently_ there-” Sasha butted in.

Marco blinked, and turned to look at her. “He wanted to see me-”

“You might think that,” Mikasa added, “but from our perspective-”

“Look, it’s not like that!” he snapped, slamming his hands down on the countertop to make her jump. “It’s _nothing_ like that! You don’t know what he’s like, you’ve never seen him when he’s not been trying to hide how scared he is of everything around him! You don’t see him like I do! He wants to be with me, he said so himself, so stop trying to twist my fucking words just because _we_ didn’t make i-!”

The sting of the slap came too late for him to dodge. It exploded on his cheek, making him see stars, and he didn’t have chance to turn back before he was hit again. He let out a yelp and cradled his head, shaking with the shock of it, and peered up at Mikasa through his fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sasha and Connie gawping at them. They probably hadn’t ever seen him snap like that. Shame washed over him as he ducked his head down. “I d-didn’t mean to say all th-”

“I know.” Mikasa’s face was impassive, but the lack of emotion made Marco nervous. “That doesn’t give you the right to say it.”

Marco nodded. “I know. I was out of line.”

“Way out of line.”  

“I’m just not thinking straight.”

“I know.”

Marco bit his lip. Mikasa still wasn’t budging. He didn’t blame her. She looked made of stone, her eyes boring into his as they stared at one another, and he wondered what had happened to make him like this. _Falling for someone. That’s what made you like this._ He closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally without it shuddering out of him like a tiny hurricane. He felt himself drifting to one side, tilting, and then he felt the soft scratchy sensation of a familiar black cardigan. He breathed again. He wasn’t even sure Mikasa would let him lean on her like this, but when he felt one arm encircle him he felt a little better.

He leant further into her and found himself resting his head on her lap as she played with his hair, and bit by bit the anger melted away. “You’re panicking,” Mikasa stated, the feeling trickling back into her words again. “You’re thinking that he won’t come back. But he will. No matter what we think, he will come back. He has to, for Claudine… but he’ll come for you.”

Marco sniffled, the prick of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes threatening to spill free. He tried to keep them back with a fierce sniff. “Y-you don’t have to say all this…”

“Yes I do.” Mikasa’s reproach was warmer now, her fingers twining a particularly long chunk of hair around one another. “Because you look exactly the same way you did when you thought you were losing it with Thomas. And I’m not letting you lose yourself again, not over Jean Kirschtein. Got that?”

Marco had to bite down hard on his lip to stop the overflow of emotion from that simple statement. She remembered everything.

“Look, I may not ‘get’ romance but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I see the way he looks at you. He can try to hide it all he likes, run from it as far as he wants, but it won’t deny what’s there on his face.” Mikasa’s hands trailed down to his face and tilted his chin. Their eyes met, and Marco saw that Mikasa was biting her own lip. “He looks at you the way I tried to look at you before I came out. That look is hard to copy, sweetheart, take it from someone who knows. I couldn’t stop trying- he can’t stop looking. Whatever the outcome, he wants you.” She chucked him under the chin and leant back, raising a brow at his expression. “But don’t you ever bring in our history as ammunition again, or you’ll get more than a slap. How about it?”

Marco nodded, and that seemed enough to satisfy Mikasa. She nodded too, and scooted off the island. “For Jean’s sake, I won’t tell Eren,” she said. “You know how he gets. Only he’s allowed to be an asshole, everyone else is fair game.”

Marco winced. Was Jean being an asshole? He guessed he probably was. He just felt bad applying that word to him, like it was an unspoken agreement between the two of them. Jean had probably been called an asshole hundreds of times before; even Marco had linked the word to him after the first few encounters with him. But now it felt to Marco like a well-placed bomb ready to go off and shatter Jean’s view of him. He huffed and ran a hand through his hair. He cared too much. He should have figured.

Batman trailed into view from the bedroom, running to Marco with a loud meow and fixed him with a yellow look that clearly asked why he hadn’t been graced with his presence sooner. Marco smiled and tickled the cat under the chin, fingers vibrating against the quaking throat as Batman purred. “I guess I should just wait, huh Bats?” he asked the cat, running his hand along the spine only to see him arch to meet him. “Only thing I can do.”

“Hey, Marco!” Connie called out, “come play with Claudine. She keeps staring at you.”

“Probably wondering how a mop with hair can be sentient,” Sasha quipped.

Marco rolled his eyes at the two of them and picked Batman up, curling the cat against his chest like a baby as he wandered over. Connie shared a look with Marco as he joined them, Batman still mewling for attention on his chest, and Marco smiled in return. Connie hadn’t ever been subdued or quiet, that much was true, but now everything he did seemed to carry less weight now. He had stopped double checking himself, the worried glances he used to throw at Sasha vanished too. His smile just grew inch by inch, like every now and again he would stop and remember that she’d accepted him until he was grinning so hard it looked like his cheeks hurt. Marco hoped that he would get the same privilege before too long.

He tried his best to mirror their smiles and cheer, but even Connie seemed to notice the slight delay to his laughter. Marco knew they were trying to keep his mind off of Jean, but it was hard not to think of him when his eyes shone out through his babbling daughter.

* * *

Hours passed, and the thorns in Marco’s chest curled tighter. When a text came through, just as the sun was sinking beneath a cloud for the last time, Marco was shaking.

**_From: Jean [21:02]  
_ ** _\- Could u bring Claudine back to mine? Sry lost track of time_

Even the text sounded preoccupied. Marco pocketed his phone with a sinking feeling and got Claudine ready, making sure to tighten the straps of the carrier around himself as tight as they would go with Sasha’s help. He didn’t really feel the bite of the straps digging into his sides; neither did he hear the irritated wails of Claudine as she was placed into the carrier after having been woken. He was told he had a one track mind at times, and it was all too clear to everyone where that track was heading.

“Be careful,” Mikasa warned him as he reached the door.

He sighed. “I’ll be fine, Mikasa,” he said. “It’s only Jean.”

“There’s no ‘only’ about it.” Mikasa tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and attempted a smile. “Just be the same big adorable idiot you always are and everything will be fine.”

Marco snorted. “Thanks, ‘Casa.”

The bravado he felt leaving his apartment ebbed away the closer he got to Jean’s house, the heavy weight of a snoozing Claudine on his chest adding to the weight he was dragging in his heels. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get back; he wasn’t sure what he’d be returning to, after all. He gritted his teeth and sped up, if only to spite his own mind. He was being ridiculous. What was there to overthink? Jean had gone to talk to Hitch- it was perfectly reasonable. Being curious about what they had to talk over wasn’t the cause of his toxic stomach, however, or the rushed thumping of his pulse against his ribs as they drew closer. He knew what it was. _He could not get jealous, he wasn’t allowed, he had no right to be jealous…_

All too soon, Jean’s house morphed into view. There were two figures stood outside the door, muted by distance, but Marco could tell they were Jean and Hitch. He stopped, shifting Claudine into a more comfortable position in the carrier, and watched the smaller of the figures reach up to kiss the taller on the cheek, hesitate, then glide away down the steps and onto the street. The pang in his chest was soon replaced by the same angry nettle sting. Keeping this to himself was going to be hard.

He stepped into the light the flickering street lamp coughed onto the pavement just as Jean turned to unlock his door. He cleared his throat as he neared him, reaching out to steady himself on the rail. Jean spun around. He looked spooked. “Just me,” Marco breathed.

Jean’s eyes settled, but not as much as they used to. “R-right,” he muttered, unlocking the door and stepping aside to let Marco pass through first. “How was Claudine?”

“She was fine, I think she needs a nappy change but she’s been good aside from that.” Marco sidled into the hallway and flicked the switch. To his relief, the narrow path sprang into colour. “We didn’t exactly expect to be out so long.” He tried to keep the edge from his words.

Jean flinched and ran a hand through his hair. “F-fuck, I know, I know. If I’d known she was still around…”

“Mm?”

Jean went quiet, shutting the door behind them and bustling his way into the kitchen- past Marco. He tried not to let it bother him, but the silence snagged in his gut. Claudine let out an energetic squeak when she saw Jean bustling back in with a pot of food and a look of grim determination on his face. If it were any other time, Marco would have gone up and kissed that look away. Today, it didn’t seem right. There was still no talk, even when Jean lifted Claudine out of the carrier and started to fumble with the straps. Every touch was slow and practiced, his eyes refusing to meet Marco’s as he freed him from the contraption and set it down on the floor. Only then did his eyes flicker up, and Marco’s stomach clenched at how lost they looked. “She’s doing good,” he mumbled, his lips barely moving as he shifted Claudine on his chest and looked down at the hem of Marco’s shirt. “She’s… she’s doing really good, Marco.”

And just like that, it was back. That bitter feeling that stung the back of his throat and made him want to curl his lip in disgust at the mere thought of Hitch. He drove it all back to gulp out a, “that’s good,” just to sate Jean.

Jean nodded, but he wasn’t done. Marco thought he might have been, when he set Claudine down in a crudely functioning high chair and gave her the pot of food like a peace offering. As Claudine ate, he turned back, took the few steps towards him and stopped short. He didn’t seem to want to get too close, like there was an invisible wall between them. He contented to tugging at the bottom of Marco’s shirt like it was some kind of leverage, lips pink from being bitten. “She wasn’t like how I remembered,” he said, playing with the frayed edges of the shirt that had been picked clean of thread through the ages. Marco had unravelled it through nerves long ago. “She was happier.”

Marco’s teeth dug into the swell of his lip. “She has a shitty sense of humour,” he replied.

“That’s just how she is.”

“I don’t think the things she said about you were that hilarious.”

Jean frowned for a moment, like he’d genuinely forgotten what Marco was talking about, and then the frown increased as he remembered. “Oh. That.” he shrugged. “S’alright. Like I said, it’s her humour. I deserved it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Jean looked up at him, the frown still on his face. The sounds of Claudine eating in the background made Marco look over to her. Jean didn’t even twitch. “You know what, we didn’t argue today. Not once. Like… I went in there expecting World War Three, but I got nothing. She just wanted to talk to me.”

That was something, Marco guessed. From what he’d seen, he thought she would lay into Jean like the red-eyed monster that haunted him. Relief washed over him, if only briefly. “Just because she was nice to you now doesn’t absolve her for what she did,” he muttered.

Jean pretended not to hear him. He looked away, at a spot over his shoulder, and carried on. “She didn’t argue with me,” he repeated, like he couldn’t quite believe it. “She just told me about how her life is now. She’s not with anyone. Said it was hard to get over what we had… whatever _that_ was.”

There came the sting again. “She was the one who cheated,” Marco said. He tried not to make it sound like a snap, but Jean recoiled anyway, sniffing and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I know that… but… I dunno, looking at her now…” Jean dared to glance up, and Marco felt a stab. _Oh no. He knew what Jean was getting at._

“Jean, it wasn’t you,” he said. When Jean made a small scoffing noise, his heart sank further. “Jean. Listen to me. It wasn’t you. She’s not this new found amazing person because she’s not with you.”

Jean gave a half-hearted little shrug. He didn’t believe him. Marco should have known he wouldn’t. He took a step forward with a hand outstretched, but Jean drew back, shaking his head like a child. He was thinking fast, eyes darting from one side of the room to the next. Marco’s stomach twisted. That was never a good sign. “Jean, what did she say to you?” he asked. He didn’t want to know, not really, but if she’d done anything to make Jean doubt himself, anything to make him think less of himself…

“She’s got money, Marco.”

Marco blinked, wrong-footed by the sudden change of subject. “How much?” was the first thing out of his mouth. It wasn’t what he wanted to ask, but it seemed the gentler of options.

Jean fished around in his pocket and pulled out five crumpled twenty pound notes, staring down at them for a moment with a dazed expression before handing them over to Marco with trembling fingers. “She’s… she’s got this new job,” he explained, “at a designer’s. She’s only on the low wage, but… but she’s doing okay.” He let out a bitter laugh as Marco looked at them, coming to the conclusion that they were definitely genuine. “She’s got a house, and a good job, and her family are rich too. They have three houses, Marco. _Three_ houses.” He was rambling now, pulling on his hair as he circled the small room he called home. Marco followed him with his eyes, perfectly still yet poised to move at the slightest notion. “And here I am, trying to get by on scraps of canvas.”

Marco’s brows drew together. Jean was looking around the room with a kind of ferocious energy, lip curling at the futon and his piles of canvases propped up around its edges. He glared at the empty spaces he couldn’t afford to fill with chairs or desks or a proper bed, though the worst look was reserved for the cot. There was so much contempt in his eyes as he looked at it Marco took a step towards Claudine without thinking. “I’m barely surviving,” Jean mumbled, “and she’s so… perfect.”

“Jean…” Marco began. He didn’t like where this was going; he could tell that there was something poisonous scratching at the surface of Jean’s skin, and it was going to break through any minute.

Sure enough, when Jean looked back at Marco, his lips were drawn together in a fine line and he was blinking back tears. Marco’s stomach plummeted when Jean’s gaze fell to Claudine.

_Oh, no. No, no, no._

“Marco, she could buy a proper cot…”

Marco shook his head. “No,” he mouthed. The word must have vanished halfway out of his mouth, he was so tense.

Jean was shaking now, _really_ shaking, and he turned on his heel to look at the room once more. “She could get her toys and blankets, and teething gel that actually works-”

“No,” Marco repeated. He felt faint.

But Jean was in a panic now. He was talking rapidly, raking his hands through his hair as his mind ran at a hundred miles an hour and his mouth double that. “-and her parents would pay tuition for a good school, a really good school, so she’d mix with the right sorts of people-”

“No.”

“And she’d have a shot at something. She wouldn’t end up like this, living in… in _squalor_.”

“I said fucking NO!”

The sheer volume of his shout startled the both of them. It broke Jean out of his snowballing reverie, and his eyes set on Marco with surprise. Claudine let out a worried cry. Marco made to step towards her, but Jean’s eyes kept him where he was. They narrowed. “ _You_ said no?” he repeated.

“Yes, Jean, I said fucking no, Jesus Christ.” Marco did move then, past Jean and to Claudine, who sat staring up at him with concern. “It’s alright sweetheart,” Marco said, trying not to let his words wobble too much. “Just eat up, alright? There’s a good girl.”

“Marco.”

The edge to Jean’s words made Marco flinch. He didn’t want to turn around. He continued to fuss over Claudine, wiping away the food that had missed her face and was now smeared over her cheeks and trying to stop his heart from breaking as she smiled at him and gabbled. Jean wanted to get rid of her, after all he’d done? He’d fought for her, he’d fought so hard… and now he was ready to give it all up? The thought made Marco’s bitterness rise up, swelling to an almost audible roar in his ears. Marco had fought all his life. He’d fought for Thomas, for Eren, for his pills. He’d fought everything and everyone who got in his way of feeling at least half the human being he wanted to be. He knew how tempting giving up was, of quitting and walking away- but he hadn’t done it. He had stuck it out, and that was exactly what he was going to do now. He straightened his back, and turned.

Jean’s eyes were still narrowed, his eyes flickering from Marco to Claudine like he was trying to figure something out. “What the fuck was that about?” Marco refused to speak. He kept his gaze levelled on Jean, and didn’t move. Jean blanched. “Wh-what do you care? It’s not like she’s _your_ daughter.” He huffed and folded his arms, creasing them tight to his chest. “You don’t get it. If you had a child you’d understand. I want the best for her, why is that so hard to grasp?”

The words felt hard as they hit Marco. They hit so hard, he even felt a little winded. He swallowed painfully, trying to keep that roaring sea behind his ears at bay. “Do you honestly think I don’t care?” he asked. The weakness of his words contrasted heavily with the anger flaring in the pit of his stomach. “This isn’t what will be good for her, Jean. Hitch can’t look after a baby- you said yourself, back when you told me about her. She’s not a mother.”

“Well she’s all Claudine has!” Jean shot back. He was irritable, Marco could tell; the hands were no longer tugging his hair, but were curled into fists at his sides. “And she’s got a better chance with her than with me!”

“Where is this coming from?” Marco demanded. When Jean remained in stony silence, he continued, “Money doesn’t matter. You are a good father, Jean-”

“No I’m not,” Jean butted in.

“Yes, you are!” Marco snapped. “And you’re doing a damn sight better than Hitch! She’s the one who treated you like _shit_ , Jean! From what I saw today, she _still_ treats you like shit! And you want to give Claudine over to that?”

“YOU DON’T KNOW ME!” Jean exploded at him, his voice rising so high that Marco shrank back a little. He’d never seen Jean so angry. More than that, he looked _incensed._ “YOU’VE KNOWN ME FOR THREE FUCKING MONTHS, DON’T YOU _DARE_ PRETEND TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE!” Claudine was crying now, shocked by her father’s shout, but neither of them moved.

“I was a mess when Hitch found me! And you know what, she thought she could fucking _fix_ me. And I just fucked her up. Made her resent me so fucking much that she felt too guilty leaving me and decided messing around was the best idea!” Spittle was flying from Jean’s lips as he shouted, and Marco could feel his temper rising, the sea pushing against the banks set up in his mind to keep it contained. “I make people sick, Marco, don’t you get that? I make them fucking sick, and you don’t know half of what it’s like to be that person!”

“WELL YOU MAKE ME BETTER!” Marco roared. Jean took a step back, bravado faltering, and Marco felt his reserves crack. “Y-you make me better,” he repeated, dropping his voice in an attempt to calm the raging tide. “Ever since I jumped in that river for you. You make me smile, make me warm, make me feel like I might be worth something.” He dropped his eyes to the floor. His hands were shaking again. “You’ll never know how close I really was to giving up, you know,” he murmured, clenching and unclenching his hand. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to be this way, it’s just how I am. S-saving people gave me a purpose, sure, but it didn’t make me whole.” He let his eyes lift up to Jean’s, and he gulped. “You did.”

Jean was silent. The anger was still there, rippling off him in waves, and Marco wasn’t sure if his words would be able to pierce the veil thrown up around him. By the way his eyes were softening, he thought that there might be a chance. “So maybe I have an immunity to you. Or maybe you’re not this monster she’s made you think you are,” he said, softening his voice still.

Jean shook his head, his voice cracking as he said, “M-Marco, you don’t understand. You don’t know me…”

“I know that you fall in love with books more than you do with people,” Marco answered, in a voice so hushed it felt far away. “I know that you place all your hopes on dead writers and dying stars, and that’s all there is for you. I know you’re scared, and I know you want to run away, but I know you want to stay, too. And I’m here, Jean. I’m right here.”

Jean looked at him as though he were see through. His eyes were wide, and scared, and the shake to his head returned. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Marco thought back to the look Hitch had cast him over her shoulder as she walked off with Jean. It hadn’t been malicious, or cunning- it simply looked sad. Like she pitied him for being so close to something that had burned her wings. Perhaps that was how she saw Jean; a celestial body that burned up everything that got too close. But by the way Jean shook and curled in on himself, Marco could see how wrong that perception was. “S-she needs a mother…” Jean said softly.

“She needs a father,” Marco replied. “She needs a father like you. She… she can even have two fathers.”

He knew he’d said the wrong thing by the way Jean tensed up. His eyes snapped wider, and the fear was gaunt on his face. Marco could see the memories Jean had flickering in front of his eyes like ghosts, pushing the same poison into his open wounds and letting them fester. “I’m being selfish,” Jean said suddenly, eyes fixed on the ground as they widened. “I’m not doing what’s best for her. I’m just following my own fucking gut. Should know by now how faulty it is.”

“Jean?” Marco stepped closer, not wanting to break Jean out of his thoughts prematurely again but wanting to help him all the same.

“It’s wrong. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be dragging her into it. It’s not fair on her. Hitch was right…” The same words from the hospital were pouring out of Jean’s mouth, scalding and thick, and Marco felt like he was being pelted with them, again and again. He let him talk, not because he wanted to but because he had nothing to say. Jean was wrapping himself up in his own insecurities, tighter and tighter until he could barely _breathe,_ and Marco could do nothing except watch. His arms began to wrap around his chest to match, clinging to his body like Marco would have if given the opportunity, and when Jean looked up his eyes were pleading. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. His voice was so small Marco had to strain to hear it.

Marco bit his lip. He didn’t have to ask what Jean meant. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

Jean shook his head. “That doesn’t matter.” 

“Of course it matters.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” Jean gritted his teeth. “What matters is Claudine. She needs a family, a real family… and I can’t… I don’t know how… this can’t be what’s right.”

Marco didn’t want his anger to get out. He didn’t want it to break its banks, to wash over his entire being and seep him in an emotion so strong he felt like he was on fire. But the fight came back to him, and then he was glaring. “Jean, she can have a family,” he pressed. “She’s got one, right here. And it’s not just me, she’s got everyone. That’s what we are. We all stick together-”

“For how long?” Jean shot back. He still looked scared. There was no anger, but Marco couldn’t help the stab he felt. “How long are you guys willing to put up with her? Sure, she’s cute now, but what happens when she grows up? What happens when I’m asking you guys to scrounge together for dinner money, or she starts asking questions about where she came from? Huh? Are you going to be around for that?”

“Of course I am! Jean, you’re panicking, you don’t know what you’re saying-”

“Yes I do!” Jean fired back. “Families only work one way! You need a mother, and a father, and a kid, and that’s _it._ ”

Marco shook his head. “Can you even hear yourself talk right now? What the fuck has Hitch done to you? You only saw her for a few hours!”

“Don’t bring her into this.”

“No, I will bring her into this!” Marco spat. “You were getting better, Jean! You were fine, you were happy! And you were happy with _me!_ And then this… fucking _harpy_ shows up…”

“Don’t call her that!”

“And she’s put you right back into a tailspin!” Marco advanced on him, and even as Jean fell back with eyes like saucers, he grabbed for him. “You don’t get to run away from this! You know what you want, you said so yourself!” He drew him in close, only to feel the tension in his body. _It was square one. He was staring right back at square one._ He didn’t want to keep hold of Jean, not when he was resisting so wholeheartedly, but he needed to understand. _Had_ to understand.

He rested their heads together, gritting his teeth at the way Jean tried to pull away, but he held fast. “You said you wanted _me_ ,” he said, in a voice that threatened to crack at the edges. “And I want you too. I haven’t wanted anyone since Thomas died. And I don’t care if that makes me selfish or jealous or whatever Hitch put into your head.” He hadn’t noticed he’d let go until he felt Jean nuzzle back against him, something catching in the back of his throat. He wasn’t pulling away. He was still there, still trying, and for a glimmer of a second Marco thought that it was going to be okay.

But then Jean spoke, and everything crumbled.

“Marco, I can’t do this.”

Everything went quiet. All the rushing thoughts stopped. The anger even drew back. All Marco could hear was the sound of his own breath, and the shuddering quakes of Jean’s so close to him.

“Wh-what?” he tried.

“I can’t do this,” Jean repeated. They stabbed even deeper the second time around.

Marco felt cold. “Why?”

“Because…” Jean’s voice faltered; he sucked in a breath and tried again. “Because I can’t be what you want. I just fuck everything up.”

Marco pulled away. He didn’t want to look at him. He knew he had to, but he knew that the mask would be up again, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope with seeing it. “Jean- you can’t-”

“Yes, I can.” Jean seethed through his teeth. “It’s for the best. You deserve better.”

“Don’t you dare,” Marco warned, “Don’t you _dare_ say that this is for my benefit.” He glared at him now, and glared hard. He swore he saw Jean blanch a little, despite the mask. “You can’t come into my life, throw everything out of sync and then drop this Spiderman shit in my face. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”

“I’m trying to-”

“If you’re going to say ‘protect me’, you’re wasting your breath.” He backed away, shaking his head as he grabbed for his jacket, dropped on the futon. He tried to blink away the tears that gathered at the corners of his eyes, hot and angry, but one managed to break through and trickle down his cheek, joining up the dots of his freckles as it went. “You know what, I’m sick of this. I’m sick of people thinking they know better than me. I’m sick of being tiptoed around because everyone thinks I need to be. I thought you were different. Guess I was wrong.”

Jean bristled at that. “Yeah, well I’m sorry for fucking caring about you. I’m sorry I’m not your manic pixie dream girl. Not all of us can be Thomas Wagner.”

It pierced Marco like a gunshot. The hole that had been punched so cleanly through his chest now bled afresh. Jean’s eyes widened.

“Shit… Marco I’m fucking sorry, that was out of line, I didn’t mean to say th-”

“Fine.” Marco shouldered his jacket and stared at the floor. “I’m sorry too.”

“No, Marco, please, I didn’t mean-”

“I’m going to go before I upset Claudine anymore.” Marco grabbed his bag with numb fingers. It took three attempts to swing it onto his back. “If you want me to look after her, you’ve got my number.”

“Marco-”

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” He fixed Jean with a hard stare, cracking with the tears that rolled down his face. “You want me out because you’re not perfect. Well, Jean, I’ll give you a newsflash: no one fucking is.”

“Marc-”

“And you know what? I can be cruel too.” He tightened his grip on his strap as he glared at him. “If you’re such a golden son, where’s your family now?”

Jean flinched. Marco didn’t stop.

“No, go on, enlighten me. If you can pick them out on the street or tell me they came to visit a week ago, I’ll take it back.” Silence. “Your mother left you at that children’s home because she needed to work things out. I get that. People need help. But when has she been there for you? Huh? Did she even send you anything for Christmas?” He knew he was hurting Jean. He could see it in his face. His heart was breaking but he didn’t want to stop; it was like Jean had opened up a whole garden full of worms, and Marco was ready to watch them squirm. “Your family taught you to push people away and to hide everything you are from the world at risk of your own sanity. Your _family_ told you that you can’t be with me just because I’m a guy too. Your family treats you like you’re broken. And yet you still care about what they think. Loyalty is a two way street, Jean. Just remember that.”

“Where are your parents?” Jean shot back. It was a weak blow, but a blow nonetheless.

Marco scoffed, tears still rolling as he fixed Jean with a sardonic smile. “That’s the difference between you and me, Jean. I don’t pretend to be anything less than I am. They’re long gone.” He looked over to Claudine, and his chest ached at how scared she looked. “I’ll see you around, sweetheart,” he said. “Take care of your Dad. God knows he needs it.”

Claudine made an insistent noise and reached out her hands to him, and Marco choked back a sob. “N-no, n-not this time sweetie,” he said, stepping back. He let his gaze land on Jean again, the last time it would, and saw that Jean was crying too, the tears falling as silent as snow down his reddening cheeks. He bit his lip. After it all, after everything Jean had said, he still ached for him. It wasn’t fair. “I’d still save you, y’know,” he murmured as he reached the gap leading into the hallway. “And I wouldn’t ever stop.”

For a moment, it looked like Jean was going to reach for his hand. They watched one another, wavering, standing on opposite precipices with only one way down. At the last second, Jean drew his hand away, back into himself, and sniffled. Marco was grateful- he wasn’t sure he would have accepted it. He walked out of the house without looking back, though when he got to the front door and shut it carefully, he felt like he’d left a part of him inside.

He stood on the doorstep for a while, looking numbly at the cracks in the woodwork and the peeling paint. He let out a huff, the remainder of his anger roiling off his shoulders, but what replaced it was ten times worse. He rested his head against the door, gritting his teeth as he let his tears drip onto the concrete, and let a tiny part of himself splinter.He’d known it. It had been too good to be true. Jean was right; these things were only temporary. Jean crafted them that way, his self-fulfilling prophecy only powerful because he made it so. Marco didn’t want to give up on him, but the fight was slowly leaving him. He was starting to wonder what the point of fighting was if it just left him more alone than ever.

“Damnit,” he hissed into the door, banging his head on it. “Fucking _damnit_.”

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, crying into the woodgrain, but it was long enough for the stars to appear, and the night to get colder. He walked back to his apartment in a kind of trance, cursing the lying stars and wondering why the hell they had decided to fall into Jean’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so fucking sorry.  
> Remember that I am the weeniest of weenies and be safe in that knowledge


	17. A Broken Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Time for another update, and this one really IS a long'un! Thank you so much for all the phenomenal feedback in the past few chapters, I truly appreciate every single comment I read, and I pledge to get through all of them soon! :) 
> 
> Anyway, this chapter, yaaaaay! Here we see Connie and Sasha's fledgling relationship take a few faltering steps, Eren is as unhelpful in situations as ever and Marco tries to come to terms with his and Jean's change of events. And Mikasa being her wonderful self, because you all know how much I adore Mikasa.
> 
> As always, you can contact me on my tumblr at attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com, or drop me a comment here! Enjoyyyy!

Marco had been hurt before. He’d been hurt a lot, in his short time on earth. He knew the different kinds of hurt, and harboured them close to his chest so he would know to avoid them if there dared be a ‘next time’.

The hurt he felt from Jean was a different breed.

He didn’t feel that aching realisation he had with Thomas, or the sharp stab of his parents’ rejection. This was somehow better, and somehow worse. He just felt listless, like the energy had gone out of him and was replaced only with an endless cycle, over and over, of pill taking and retching and shivering. It clung to him like fog, unyielding and suffocating. He didn’t feel like he was going to die from the pain- he just felt indescribably _empty_.

The travel home from Jean’s house that night felt like it had taken years. Eren had materialised from the plaster in between Marco leaving his apartment and returning to it, but didn’t have the guts to sneer, “I told you so”, when Marco came back with tear-bruised eyes and the aftershocks of sobs still wracking his body. He just put down his coffee cup, steered Marco to his bedroom and held him. And there Marco stayed.

He cried sometimes, and Eren was there for when those times came- but he could have been a ghost, for all the good it did. His embrace sent prickles through Marco’s system, and the urge to wrench himself free and suffer alone was almost too great to resist. But he held back, let Eren comfort him in the way he knew, and tried to stop thinking. It was an impossible task. Marco could imagine the walk back from Jean’s second by second; every loose stone, every flickering streetlight, every gust of wind, all were stored somewhere in the back of his mind and rose to bite when he least needed them.

Marco still felt as though he was tracing those same steps days later, lying on his back with the cracked ceiling above as he willed his limbs to stop aching. The flu had hit again, and knocked him flat on his back. Mikasa and Eren were on the alert as per usual, but they knew that they were not who Marco wanted to see.

He didn’t want to think that it was a kind of pining he was experiencing. He knew that part of it was the side effects, though the sickness and heat flashes appeared more and more frequent than they had been before, and clung to the belief that side effects were all it was. It was _not_ his grief. It was _not_ his pain. Perhaps it was none of those things; maybe Jean was just a distraction from the way his body was collapsing in on itself. His very skin felt tainted and moist to the touch during the worst bouts of fever, and he began to wonder if it was poison seeping from his pores instead of sweat. It might as well have been, as Eren was constantly shepherded away by an overly worried Mikasa or Armin. Those were the times when Marco felt more alone than ever. Cut adrift from the hushed voices in the room beyond, he had nothing but his laboured breath and flashes of panic for company.

The panic truly set in on the fourth day, when he almost slept through his pill-taking. If Mikasa hadn’t shook him awake, he was sure he would have missed it. He choked on the cascade of drugs thrown down his throat, Mikasa pushing a glass between his lips to help them down, and then he just cried. Cried because he was sick of living like this, cried because he missed Jean and he didn’t want to, cried because the one person he wanted to talk to had been gone for three years. Mikasa just rubbed his back, drew him into her chest on a few occasions, and stroked his hair. “You’re alright,” she soothed amid his choked sobs, “You’ve gone through worse than this, you’ll make it out, come on sweetheart, you’re stronger than this…”

Marco knew that wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that he didn’t _want_ to be strong anymore. Jean wasn’t the sole reason, but he struck some sort of spark within him. Marco was beginning to think that it was time to give in, to drop his arms and put his hands up. Mikasa wouldn’t let him, nobody would, but the other option was simple. He had to fight harder than he ever had before; fight the sickness and the sweats and the lonely nights, and he would have to admit to what he was fighting for. He would have to tell all of them. The very thought sent his confidence scuttling back into the dark, and he was happy to let it cower there for the time being.

He was sick for two weeks. It was the longest two weeks of his life, punctuated by moments of feverish delirium and blasts of the saddest music he could get hold of in the apartment, and at every moment he hoped for the sound of shoes at the door, the delighted squeal of Claudine, the quirked smile. But then reality set in, and it seemed like it had never happened. Everything was as it had been. There he was; in the same old spot on the same old bed, willing the world to stop turning for a moment.

Once news travelled around, Ymir burst through the door brandishing a bag that looked suspiciously like it was wriggling, Connie and Sasha set up camp in his room with Mikasa and even Marlow poked his head in from time to time. The healthier of them stayed in his room. Mikasa and Sasha crammed onto his bed, with Ymir asleep against the wall and Connie in a sleeping bag on the floor beside them, and the feel of their hands in his made Marco’s head swim a little less. Eren was relegated to the living room, despite his protests, and made a nest of blankets and pillows there with the promise to check in on Marco as many times as the others would allow. The feel of bodies pressing around him, something that was usually so strangling, was now something Marco chased. They suffered with him, wincing when he coughed and diving for the designated bowl when his stomach gave a particularly bad lurch. “Where the hell didja get this lurgy, Bodt?” Ymir complained as she narrowly avoided being thrown up on. “You sound like you’re about to cough up your lungs, don’ know about anythin’ else.”

Marco thought back to the rattle in Jean’s lungs, and thought it fitting that this was his parting gift. He said nothing, though, just buried his face into his pillow and shuddered in the aftershock.

During the day, it was only Mikasa that stayed. Everyone else had places to be. She had taken time off work, quoting ‘personal reasons’ as her excuse, and Marco was grateful. He and Mikasa didn’t have to talk; they knew each other enough for the whole notion of talking to be pointless. She spent her time forcing soup down his throat, tracing shapes on his skin with her fingers and catching him up on the world outside. Sasha and Connie were official. Marlow got given a write-off Ford Anglia that he was in love with, horrific paint job and all. Ymir was still seeing Christa, on and off. “I think they’re a little tense at the moment,” she’d explained, and said no more. Marco was pretty certain he knew why, but said nothing. No one seemed to want to talk about Jean in front of him. He hadn’t realised how worried they all were until he stared at Mikasa, and saw the way she couldn’t quite meet his eye in return.

When his fever broke, he had the opportunity to ask.

Mikasa sat cross-legged on the bed beside him, fingers tracing circles on his scalp as she watched for signs of pain, and the wailing of a sad singer continued on in the background. For a moment, they just stared at one another, mute in their thoughts as well as their speech- but then Marco cleared his throat. “Have you seen Christa lately?”

Mikasa blinked. “No, why do you ask?”

Marco bit his lip. He had to be tactful, but he could see the way Mikasa’s brow was rising. “I just wanted to know how she was,” he shrugged. “I haven’t seen her in a while, s’all.”

“I haven’t either. She seems to be doing alright though. I can always see if she wants to come see you with Ymir tomorrow?”

Marco chuckled weakly and shut his eyes. “What are you, my mum?”

“No, but I feel like one so you better get well before I have to whip your ass.”

Marco yawned. “Promises, promises.”

Mikasa was quiet for a moment, but then she asked, “You don’t want to see Christa to know how she is, do you?” Marco’s guilty silence was enough to make her huff. “Marco, she’s told him. She’s said you’re ill. He hasn’t come. You can ask her yourself, but she told him.”

Marco felt the disappointment drop like a rock into his stomach. Despite how light and weak he felt from the fever, there was a weight there now that wasn’t there before. “Oh,” he mumbled. Jean’s words came back to him in a flurry, and he suppressed a groan as he remembered how Jean felt like a sickness, infecting everyone like miasma. To Jean, his beliefs were coming true. No wonder he stayed away. “I… I just wondered, you know? I didn’t think he would, I mean… we said some awful things to each other…”

“What did you say?” When Marco’s eyes opened, Mikasa was frowning. “You haven’t talked about it. I know you don’t like talking about things like that, but I get worried.” She smoothed her hand against his forehead, checking his temperature for the umpteenth time that day, and Marco let out a sigh. He owed it to her, if anyone.

“Hitch wanted to take Claudine,” he said, his voice nearly breaking even as he said her name. “She… she told Jean that he’d make me sick like he made her sick. A-and now he can’t even look at me.”

Mikasa nodded, understanding. “He did the whole martyr thing.”

“Exactly! And you know what kind of panic I was in, I… I didn’t take it too well.”

“As expected.” Mikasa sighed. “Did you shout at him?”

“I shouted a lot.”

“Did he shout back?”

“Yeah…”

Mikasa let out a low whistle. “Oh dear.”

“Tell me about it.” Marco shut his eyes again in an attempt to stave off the pain in his gut. “We both fucked up, but part of me still doesn’t care what he said. If he… If I…”

“You’d go back to him in a heartbeat,” Mikasa finished, “wouldn’t you?”

Marco raked a hand through his hair. “Would you hate me if I said yes?”

“No. I’d say you were being honest, and that’s good.” When Marco squinted up at her, unsure, she offered a lidded smile. She understood. She always did. Marco thought back to the times he had complained to her about Thomas; he could laugh at how convinced he’d been that Thomas would never look at him twice, the way he propped age and personality up like unbreakable fences, only to have them kicked through weeks later. Mikasa was part of that, coercing him on with little nudges and whispers that everything was fine, he was doing the right thing, and even now she wasn’t condemning Jean for what he’d done. She didn’t avoid his name like Eren did- she merely waited for the right moment to use it again.

He shuffled closer to her, resting his chin on her leg as he let a heavy sigh escape him. “I feel like I should be hated,” he muttered.

“That’s impossible,” Mikasa snorted, “seeing as everyone loves you.”

Marco sighed again. “I never asked for that.”

A frown crossed Mikasa’s face for a brief period, before it smoothed itself out. She patted the side of his face, letting her fingers linger on his clammy cheek for a moment. “You know, you can’t push away the family you’ve built here,” she said, shifting his hair out of his eyes. “They all worry about you. We all worried about Sasha, about Eren… why are you any different? You deserve it just as much as they do.”

Marco sniffed and leant into her touch just a little, relishing the proximity. She could say these words, phrase them any way she pleased, but it still took more than that to convince him. He was balanced on a tight rope with nowhere to go but forward, and he wasn’t sure that if he fell, they would reach up to catch him or step aside. Especially if they knew. _Oh god, if they knew._

Mikasa seemed to be thinking the same thing, for she scratched his scalp gently and looked over to the bedside table. “How long ‘til your six month review?” she asked.

Marco shut his eyes. He didn’t want to think about it. “Soon,” was all he offered.

“Soon?”

“Mmm, sometime next week.”

“You had one three months ago.”

“They’re keeping an eye on me.” When Mikasa’s frown increased, Marco closed his eyes again. “They think I’ve becoming more…susceptible. S’why they keep upping my dose. The old ones aren’t working so well.”

“Oh, Marco…”

“Don’t. I’m fine. They said it’s normal. But… it just means more meetings. More tests. More pills.” Marco shrugged. “I suppose it’s better than the other option.”

That ugly possibility sat like a rock on the foot of his bed. Neither of them wanted to consider it. They had gone through it once; they didn’t want to go through it all over again. She wrapped her arms around him and fell back onto the bed, her own shaky breath rising and falling with his own, and Marco was speechless. Mikasa _never_ cuddled. “You are not going anywhere,” she replied firmly, squeezing his arm to stop him from complaining. “I won’t let you. And I know you won’t let yourself, either.” Her grip tightened as she added, “But you need to tell everyone. Before it gets-”

“Worse?” Marco opened his eyes and gave her a sardonic smile. “I forgot how much of a picnic this is right now.”

Mikasa snorted and elbowed him in the ribs, wriggling out of his embrace. “You’re a dick,” she huffed. “Everyone thinks you’re some angel and you’re not.”

“Guilty as charged.”

And then, everything became light again. The lump vanished from Marco’s throat, and all he could hear was Mikasa’s laughter as she gave him another shove and rolled out of bed. He watched her as she crossed the room to pick up her phone, a battered old thing she’d had since she was fifteen, and let his smile spread across his face. He could feel empty, sure, but he had Mikasa. Through everything, she would be there. There was no wonder why he’d fallen for her all those years ago; her cold exterior only felt that way because there was so much heat curling beneath her surface. He was lucky to have her.

She stared at her phone and said, “Everyone’s going to that restaurant owned by the fun-sized hitman rip-off sometime next week. You think you’ll feel better enough to come?”

The rock in Marco’s stomach dropped lower. Did they _have_ to pick that restaurant, of all the ones in Trost? He winced as he sat up, feeling a lot less dizzy than he had the last time he’d attempted such a thing. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, dropping his hands onto his lap after a stretch.

“Not sure. I think maybe Ymir wants to make it her birthday. You know how she likes to spring it on us so she doesn’t get presents.” Mikasa paused in her reply to whoever it was, and glanced over. “Do you want to come?” she asked.

The rephrasing of the question made Marco smile. Again, she knew. “Sure,” he said, hauling himself up and stretching his unused muscles. “I’ll be there.” He couldn’t let the places he’d gone with Jean become haunted. Places were places. They didn’t have some sort of ability to hold in the memories of times gone by, even if Marco felt like they did. Mikasa’s thoughtful smile as she resumed her text had a hint of pride in it, and Marco felt that rock rise just a little.

+++

It wasn’t long before he realised how much of a blessing his illness had been. Though it tied him to a single room and made every waking moment feel like some hellish nightmare, it was nothing compared to missing Jean without a distraction. The emptiness in his chest yawned wider, drawing in everything that surrounded it, and by the looks Mikasa was glancing at him he wasn’t hiding it all that well. He didn’t expect anything less; he’d jumped without a safety net there to catch him, and now he had to deal with the broken bones. Snipping away the string that held Jean to him was harder than ever considering just how much he was _there_ for Marco; in his apartment, in the street, in the park. Marco didn’t feel safe anywhere. Nowhere was a Jean-free zone, because he’d filled all the gaps. Marco could get angry at the unfairness of it all.

Even in his room, where he could shut out all natural light and lie on his back for hours, Jean’s painting still stood. Marco found himself tracing the lines of the black horse’s mane every time he looked at it, the gleam to the eye, the nebulae breaking out above its head, and the ache would grow worse. He couldn’t bring himself to put it away, though, even when Eren suggested it. It wasn’t just the painting; Marco still had Jean’s book, and he knew that Jean still had things of his. They would have to see one another sooner or later, if only to pass their things over.

Maybe that was the reason that, one evening, Marco snatched up _The Great Gatsby_ and started to read it from where he left off, devouring page after page with a hunger he’d not felt for a while. He didn’t like to admit that reading did the exact opposite of distraction- in fact, it only sharpened his focus. Turning the pages, scanning the typeface, it all made him feel closer to Jean. He could imagine a younger Jean, a Jean even more scared than he was now, clutching the book to him like a gospel and letting the words curl around his lips as he mouthed sentences and paragraphs in silence. Jean had a lot of things that were his own personal solace, and Marco had been naïve enough to think that he could have been one of them.

He didn’t let these thoughts take hold of him too often. He could hide them well enough, and did a good job of squashing them down to the pit of his stomach. He’d had the practice. It was nothing to do it again. He could smile. He could laugh. He could joke with his friends. He could even be polite to the more difficult of customers at the shop.

But happy? That was something he couldn’t be. Not for a long time.

The most important thing was that he could fake it, and that made people around him relax. Let them relax. They had enough on their plate, without having to deal with a pining friend who’d only been in the relationship for a week at best. Marco reserved the crippling times for when he was alone, after the first few days of ‘feeling better’. It was better that way. Sometimes, he could even fool himself.

He had managed to convince himself, for example, that going out for Ymir’s birthday to the same red restaurant was a good idea. He wasn’t sure whether it was the remnants of fever clinging on or the songbird excitement Eren showed at the prospect. Sooner or later he was collapsed on his bed, trying not to make his wheezing sound worse than it was whilst Eren rifled through his wardrobe that afternoon, running a hand over his face and cringing at how clammy it still felt. It was a new feeling, but he wasn’t surprised; the side effect flavour of the month was always subject to change. “Why are you even in my wardrobe right now?” he asked the zebra-striped rear wiggling around in his collection of hangers. “You know I’ll just wear what I normally do.”

He got a derisive snort in response. “Yeah, uh huh, sweetheart the scruffy tramp vibe died about ten years ago. We’ll save it for renditions of RENT, yeah?”

“You love my scruffy aesthetic!” Marco huffed. “What, so I should dress like the Eighties threw up on me?”

Eren straightened up with a bright grin. “Hey, it did me some favours back in uni.”

“Only because you’re so bright you practically stop traffic, let alone a horrendously horny student.” Marco bit his lip around a smile. “Shame that the person inside it doesn’t match.”

“Oi, watch out or I’ll have you wearing bright pink!”

Marco snorted and flopped back onto his back. “I’ll be good.”

“Yeah, you better be.”

Marco heard Eren rifling through his clothes with more vigour, muttering about how there were only shades of blue or black or green and the only nice looking tops would make him look like he was going for a job interview, before the weight of at least five pieces of fabric landed on his legs with no warning. “Oomph!” Marco sat up to look them over and grimaced. “Dark orange jumper, Eren? Really?”

“I like it on you. Suits you.”

“You would say that, you were the one who bought it for me.” Marco brought it closer to his face for inspection. “It’s not my colour,” he decided, throwing it to the side.

“You’re wearing that,” Eren said, “because everything else is too dark and boring. I’ll wrestle it on you myself.”

Marco smirked. “Like to see you try.”

“Ohhh Bodt, do not tempt me.”

Marco knew he was fighting a losing battle. With a sigh, he took hold of the jumper and padded to the bathroom. Maybe it wouldn’t look as bad once he’d taken a shower and put it on in a better light.

It turned out the jumper made him feel like a pumpkin. It wasn’t that it was big or baggy; it just seemed too colourful for what he was used to. Eren’s demands that it looked great made him roll his eyes, but after he got a sly comment on the way he fitted into his jeans he would have taken the compliment on his jumper more readily. But he slipped on his plastic smile, slipped his pill pot into his pocket and set off, with Eren bouncing eagerly beside him. He’d won the right to wear his leather jacket over the dark orange, despite Eren’s whining, and the cracked leather smell felt like a suit of armour.

He wasn’t sure how many people were going to turn up, but Eren promised that it would be enough. Mikasa would be turning up after her shift finished, but Armin was in the middle of a rather heavy sounding essay due on his professor’s desk by the following week, so he’d been forced to politely decline. Marco could hear the disappointment in Eren’s voice as he relayed the information, but with a heavy shrug he admitted that Armin needed the time to study. “He works himself to the bone, Marco, I swear to god the guy doesn’t stop for a second. He even burst into my apartment at three in the morning after checking up on one of his patients. Nothing’s ‘just a job’ to him, y’know?”

Marco didn’t know that Eren had moved back into his apartment. He didn’t know a lot of things. How far down the rabbit hole had he fallen? He kept his smile polite as they walked, and tried not to think about what else he’d missed, being caught up in such a riptide.

The restaurant was as lively as it had been the first time they’d visited, and the sight made Marco’s stomach constrict rather painfully. He stopped at the pavement, eyeing the diners as they drifted like smoke behind the frosted glass. “Not going all déjà vu on me now are you?” Eren remarked, a step behind him.

“N-no, it’s just…” Marco rubbed the back of his neck as he looked the place up and down. “I’ve not really… it’s a little…”

Eren’s expression said it all. “Marco, it’s okay. They get it.” He placed a hand on his shoulder and shook it gently. “They don’t expect you to be-”

“I just don’t want to talk about it. About him.” Marco closed his eyes the moment Jean’s face swam into his vision, and he blinked it away before it could gather ground. “This is for Ymir, you know? Not for me. And yet I still can’t stop thinking about him. It’s selfish of me.”

“It’s not selfish at all.” Eren’s hand skimmed down Marco’s arm, the motion making him shiver. “Break ups are tough, dude. It happens. We’ve all been there.”

Marco bit his lip. “Was it even really a break up if we weren’t official in the first place?” he asked.

Eren didn’t answer. He gave a small tug on his jacket, leading him towards the doors with less of a spring in his step than before. “C’mon, Marco. Today’s for forgetting. You can let go of it all. And if there’s a hot guy inside then god _damn_ are you going to chat him up.” Marco blanched at the very idea, but followed in Eren’s wake. _Oh, well. I can’t stay moping forever._

They were greeted by a raucous cheer from the centre table as they entered. Ymir already had her arm slung around Christa with a bottle in her free hand, and beckoned them over with it before the waiter even had a chance to drop his cloth on the bar. “Look who it is!” she crowed, causing a few neighbouring diners to jolt their heads up to regard him too, “Twinkletoes, ya came! Knew you’d not let a lass down!”

Eren scoffed. “And who am I, the sidekick?”

“Yer the icin’ on the cake, Jaeger.”

“Goddamn right I am.”

Marco scruffed Eren’s hair and looked at them all in turn. Sasha and Connie were sat together, not so subtly holding hands under the table. Marlow was fiddling with his napkin, twisting it back and forth into twists and crumples. Christa was trying to lean away from Ymir’s embrace without looking offended. Every look they cast his way was one of tired relief at seeing a smile on his face. His stomach twisted again. He was worrying these people. His own problems were eating away at their insides, when they all had their own problems.

He sat down beside Sasha meekly, offering a warm smile to the table. He didn’t deserve that. He was lucky, sure, but he didn’t deserve it. “Hey big man,” Sasha greeted, throwing an arm around him so haphazardly she almost threw herself off her chair to accomplish it. “How you holding up, my favourite superhero?”

He wanted to cry. “Not amazing, but I’m getting there,” he lied, fixing his face with another smile. “I’m sorry you had to-”

“Man, don’t ever apologise,” Connie cut in, brows furrowed. “We’re with you through hell and high water, you know that by now.”

Marco bit his lip and nodded, ducking his head down to peruse the menu. _He wasn’t a burden he wasn’t a burden he wasn’t a-_

He was jolted from his reverie by a beer pushed his way. He glanced down the table to see Ymir watching him, her eyes lazy and lidded. “Get that down your gullet,” she instructed. “It ain’t quite donkey piss but it sure as hell kicks like it. You need it, Twinkle.”

Marco eyed the bottle sceptically. He wasn’t supposed to drink much on his medication. He knew if Mikasa were there, she would be giving him a glare right about now. But she wasn’t, and he was sad and lonely. “I don’t know, it’s still early…”

“Come _on_ , Marco. It’s my birthday wish for you to get absolutely rat-arsed.”

Mikasa didn’t need to know if it was _just one_. He brought the bottle to his lips and drank.

The snarl of alcohol in his system made things easier. Pretending became a hell of a lot easier. The hurt was numbed, voices in his head muffled. It was only one drink, but it was enough to relax him. The afternoon rolled by, full of laughter and food and beer, and Marco could start to visualise what it would be like to go back to how it once was. It wasn’t all that bad. He had his friends, had their laughter and love and lives to get wrapped up in. He could survive, he decided after finishing his second helping of desert and feeling like he was about to burst- the first time in a while. It didn’t have to be all shades of grey. Relationships had a way of doing that to him. For the first year after Thomas died, Marco had felt colour blind, picking his way through the crowds without anything to light his path. It was a burden, the rock that lingered in his stomach, but it wouldn’t be there forever. He would move on. Push forward. After all, what other choice did he have?

After the fourth round of drinks (and a third glass of water for Marco), Mikasa joined them. Eren flew out of his seat to greet her, almost dunking his hand in some poor customer’s soup, and after he swept her up into a hug she was altogether not prepared for, she made a beeline for Marco. “Okay?” she asked, pecking him on the side of the head.

Marco felt the lump appear in his throat. He nodded. “G-getting by.”

Mikasa smiled, and that was it. She moved away to steal a spoonful of Marlow’s trifle amid his full-mouthed protests, and she said nothing more. Marco was grateful for that.

As the previous customers around them left and got replaced by the next nervous ones, the group’s energy grew louder and livelier. Marco felt like he was being taken along with it, with nothing to do but be swept away with small smiles and nods to confirm that he was still listening. He felt apart from them, sure, but their voices were beginning to pierce through his armour. For brief moments, he could feel like his old self.

Eren was lolling on his shoulder, cooing soft things into his ear that he wanted to try out on Armin but wasn’t sure were appropriate, when it happened. Sasha was in the middle of telling a story Marco had heard hundreds of times before about a woman who bought a funeral garland for her son in law’s 40th birthday when she stopped mid-sentence. The table peered at her curiously. Marco frowned. The only thing that tended to shut Sasha up was food, and that was all cleaned out. Marco’s frown deepened. “Sash?” he tried. Connie was staring at her too, confusion written all over his face, but when she rose to his feet he stayed where he was, looking up at her as though she’d gone mad.

“You,” she said simply.

Marco made a confused noise in the back of his throat and turned to see who she was looking at. His eyes landed on the man standing at the entrance of the restaurant, blonde hair a mess from having fingers run through it, and his eyes snapped open. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

“What?” Connie asked. “Who is it?”

“Uh…”

Too late, they had been spotted. Slate grey eyes fell upon Sasha, and a smile dared to break across his face. Marco remembered that smile from when he’d first moved into the apartment; the crooked smile, the confident laugh, the press of a cold drink into his palm by those same hands. The way Sasha used to hang off him like a limpet was a far cry to how she was now. Back then they were a power couple, the kind their friends envied because of how beautiful they were. Beauty, however, wasn’t everything. Both Marco and Sasha had found that out fast enough with the slam of a door and the cold plastic of a pregnancy test passed under the door. He saw Sasha’s hand ghost over the swell of her belly on instinct.

Farlan fucking Church.

It had been a while.

Sasha stood stock still, hand on her bump and eyes boring into him as he hesitated, unsure, before making his way over. He gracefully sidestepped the waiters carrying plates to tables and ran a hand through his hair absently as he reached them, the same crooked smile coming into play as he noticed Marco there too. Marco couldn’t help but square his shoulders. _Farlan fucking Church_.

“Sash, love?” he said, the characteristic Irish twang now abrasive to Marco’s mind. “M-My God, darlin’, it’s been ages. H-how are you doing?”

Sasha gawped at him.

“You, uh, look well,” he said, indicating to her bump. “Looks like he’s, uh, growin’ nice.”

Still, Sasha stared at him. He opened his mouth, then checked himself. He looked to Marco, clearly deciding on a different tactic. “Hey Marco. Long time no see, mate. You still rooming with Sash?”

“Don’t talk to him,” she said. It was a low whisper, the kind you had to strain to hear, and the entire table seemed to lean in to catch it. Marco heard a whispered, “oh _shit_ things are gonna go down,” from Eren but chose to ignore it.

Farlan’s smile cracked. “Uh, sorry. Guess that wasn’t very tactful, huh?” he chuckled self-consciously. “Just didn’t sound like you wanted to talk, so-”

“Are you surprised?” she said. When Farlan said nothing, she prompted, “Well? _Are_ you?” amid the low whistle from Eren.

“W-well, uh…” He scratched the back of his neck. “No, I guess not.”

“You guess not,” Sasha repeated. “You. Guess. Not.”

Farlan let out a sigh. It trembled halfway through. “L-look, darlin’ girl, I was an idiot,” he said. “I… I know it doesn’t absolve me from anything, but I was scared. I freaked. I was a coward, and… and I shouldn’t have left you. I should’ve at least told you were I was. I get that.” He continued to play with his hair, something that gave Marco memories he knew better than to dwell on. “I got a modelling deal out in Stohess for the winter- only just got back this week. B-but I was gonna call you, I swear I was darlin’, I just… got side- tracked.”

“ ** _Side- tracked?!_** ” Sasha screeched. The entire group jumped back a pace. They hadn’t seen Sasha truly angry. Marco had. He knew what was coming, and he did not want to be here when things really kicked off. He’d heard enough of it behind closed doors.

Farlan paled in the wake of her anger. “Wait, uh, n-no that wasn’t what I-”

“You got me _pregnant_ , you moron!” Sasha spat. “You didn’t just disappear on a whirlwind adventure and forget to leave me a note, you left me with a _baby!_ You left me scared and alone with no one to turn to except Marco. And you say _you_ were the fucking scared one?! _What about **me**?!”_

“Uh, Sash, darlin’, sweetheart, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it right now...” Farlan began, casting a nervous look over his shoulder at the way Levi was watching them. “I’m sorry, I really am, I didn’t mean to make you mad, I just… maybe we can do this later?”

“Why? Why not now?” Sasha’s fists were clenched at her sides until they jabbed viciously at every person seated around her. “After all, we’re amongst _friends_ here, aren’t we?”

“D-darlin’, come on now, you’re getting hysterical-”

“Oh, I wonder why? Maybe because I have a _baby_ inside me and I am SWIMMING IN HORMONES?!”

Farlan was looking more and more cornered the longer he stood there. Marco couldn’t help but pity him a little. This wasn’t the same Farlan who had matched Sasha’s shouts and insults word for word in the twilight hours; he looked humbled, head bent down and doused in a shame that seemed hard to shake. It didn’t suit him. But then Marco remembered the day Sasha found out. The hours he spent sat on the other side of the door as he heard her breaking her heart in the bathroom of their apartment, clutching the positive test to her chest and wailing about how she was too young to be a mother. The pity died quickly.

“L-look,” Farlan tried, reaching a surrendering hand out to her, “I can see you need time, and that’s fine, I’m willing to wait. I’d wait for you Sash, I promise I would-”

“Yeah, because you did such a good job of being there before.” Everyone’s heads turned to Connie. He was on his feet now, glaring Farlan down despite only coming to his chin.

Farlan blinked at him. “Uh, I don’t mean to be rude but… is it really your business what Sasha and I have to talk about?”

“I’m her fucking boyfriend, asshole.”

Farlan blinked again. “Oh.” His eyes flitted over to Sasha. “My bab’s not even out of your belly and you’re moseying up to someone else?”

Sasha huffed. “Farlan, it’s not like that.”

Connie stared at her. “It’s not?” he questioned.

“No, mate. It’s not.” The familiar glint returned to Farlan’s eyes when he shot Connie a warning glare. “She’s my girl. I made mistakes, sure, but she loves me and I love her.” Farlan shrugged. “No hard feelings, man. Just human nature. I appreciate you looking out for her when I was gone, but I’m back now. Time to step away.”

Connie _bristled._

“Drag his ass, Connie!”

“Eren, sit down.”

Marco let Eren and Mikasa’s banter sail over his head. He was looking at Sasha and Connie, Sasha and Farlan, and wondering what the hell was going to happen now. Marlow caught his eye across the table and gave him a quizzical look. Marco simply shrugged. He wasn’t going to get involved. They had scores to settle that he couldn’t help with.

Connie didn’t have the words to retort. He just grabbed his jacket, slung it on and stormed away amid the pleads of the table. Sasha called out a desperate, “Connie!” but it fell on deaf ears. Marco felt his plastic cover chip away as Connie left, head ducked down and the look of utter defeat about him. He’d been there. He knew how cold and hurt and prickling with tears Connie was sure to be. He stood to go after him, but Mikasa’s glare dragged him back to his seat.

Sasha turned back to Farlan with a watery glare. “Now look what you did!” she snapped. She raked a hand through her hair with a growl. “I don’t know if I want to listen to you. I prefer the idea of killing you.”

“Shall we try the listening option first?” Farlan said, with a weak chuckle. “Come on, darlin’. I have a lot of apologising to do, and you have a lot of things to shout at me. Best if we do it someplace else, right?”

For a split second, Marco thought Sasha was going to agree. But then, Connie burst back into the restaurant, his face completely devoid of emotion. “Alright, that’s it.” Connie shed his jacket in one fell swoop and threw it at the nearest person- it happened to be an indignant Marlow. “Come on pretty boy, let’s take it outside.”

Farlan stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“I said outside. Now.” Connie jerked his head towards the doors. “You’re not deaf.”

Silence.

“You’re kidding, right?” Farlan asked a beat later. “It’s like minus twelve degrees out there, mate, I don’t want any-”

“You won’t listen to me talking so maybe you’ll listen some other way.”

Farlan snorted in disbelief. “Uh, okay then. Do you want me to bring my duelling pistols or-?”

Connie remained impassive, his face perfectly steady even if, when his eyes looked to Sasha, there was a pain there. “I love Sasha,” he repeated, “and you left her on her own. She can’t beat you to a pulp in her state but I sure as shit will do it for her.”

The entire table gaped. “Connie, do you even know how to fight?” Marlow asked. “You almost got beaten up by a couple of teenagers, don’t set yourself up for a fall like that.”

“Nah, go on Connie, knock his brains out!” Eren crowed, and got a collective round of “SHUT UP”s to accompany him.

Farlan looked from one face to the next, gauging whether or not they thought Connie a serious threat, and then settled on Connie himself. Marco thought he looked ten feet tall, stood there like that with his breath coming in short pants and fists trembling at his sides. Wow. He really did love Sasha. Farlan sighed. “Well, I guess if it’ll make you happy,” he conceded. And with that he was taking off his jacket, the white shirt he wore underneath stretched tight around his torso. It looked like there were muscles there. Marco _knew_ there were muscles there. If Connie was nervous, he didn’t show it; he just turned on his heel and stormed out, Farlan following close behind.

For a moment everyone stayed where they were. The entire restaurant’s eyes were trained on the doorway, almost like they were willing Connie and Farlan to come back. And then, like a jolt of electricity, Eren shot out of his chair and charged to the door, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as he went. Mikasa chased after him with a curse on her lips, and that seemed like the perfect cue for the rest of the diners to scrape back their chairs and make a mad dash for the door. Marco was caught up in the cacophony of high heels and squeaky shoes, and lost all manners as he pushed and shoved his way to the front of the crowd squeezing their way through the doors. He heard Levi shouting in a dismayed Russian at the sudden emptying of his restaurant, and briefly caught sight of him jumping onto the bar and screaming for order. His demands went unheeded.

When Marco burst outside he was temporarily confused by how dark it had become. The nights still crept in quickly, and the street was now coated in darkness. The change in temperature hit him like a kick in the guts, and he curled his jacket around himself more tightly as he looked for Eren and Mikasa. He found them at the very front of the group, Eren practically bouncing on his heels in excitement and Mikasa whacking him every time she noticed. He squeezed his way towards them with small whispers of, “pardon me, scuse me, sorry” every time he got a glare cast his way.

Connie and Farlan were facing off, both of them glaring now. Farlan’s confused puppy dog expression had well and truly vanished now, giving way to the blazing anger Marco recognised. “You can’t ever justify what you did!” he heard Connie shout. “You left her when she needed it the most, you selfish prick!”

“This doesn’t involve you, you bug eyed little shit!” Farlan roared back. “You don’t know my life, don’t you fucking dare think you do!”

Marco gulped. Those words tugged at the rusting hook still lodged in his insides. _You don’t know me. Don’t you **dare** pretend to know everything about my life._ He clenched his jaw and pushed the thought aside.

“I know that you fucking walked out on Sasha like a coward!” Connie shot back. “What else do I need to know?!”

“I was doing it for her own good! Don’t you understand that, you piece of shit?! You don’t have the fucking right to call me a coward, only I can say things like that! You don’t know me!”

“And you don’t know me, so stop telling me I don’t love Sasha!”

“Come off it, do you really think she’d have jumped from me to you so quick if she wasn’t pregnant? Please, mate, be a smidge modest.”

That was what did it. Farlan didn’t expect Connie’s fist to come swinging up, and neither did Marco. The group let out a collective shriek when Connie found his mark and Farlan reeled backwards with a choked, “Fuck!” to accompany it. “What the hell do you call that?!” he snarled, spitting out a gobbet of blood onto the street.

“This.” Connie punched again, and this time the force knocked Farlan to the ground.

“Huh, I thought Farlan would be better than this,” Eren commented as Farlan staggered to his feet with a look of thunder. “He looks like he lifts, dude, I wouldn’t mess with that hunk of Irish beef.”

“He was taken by surprise,” Mikasa said, as though she was watching a pair of cats fight from her window. “Just wait until he’s-”

“YOU LITTLE FUCKER.”

_Clang._

“There we are.”

As Connie recovered from the smack around the head (from what appeared to be the lid of a nearby bin) Farlan put his head down and charged, knocking them both to the floor. There was a collective roar from the group watching, and Marco finally managed to wiggle into place beside Eren and Mikasa. “Where’s Sasha?” he asked, watching the mass of limbs flailing on the ground in front of them.

“Don’t know,” Eren said, not taking his eyes off the fighting. “Hope she’s got a ring side seat. Having two guys fighting over me like this’d make me horny as hell.”

“Eren.”

“What, I’m not the _only_ frustrated motherfucker here ‘Casa.”

‘Fighting’ was a very loose term for what was actually going on. What seemed to be happening was Connie pulling on Farlan’s hair whilst Farlan yelped and tried to bite Connie’s arm. Any punches of kicks they suffered were just collateral; most of the punches Connie was trying to land on Farlan were actually hitting his own legs. When Farlan managed to wrench himself free of the tangle, Connie latched onto his leg and refused to let go.

“Get off me!”

“Never!”

“Goddamn it, do I have to drag you?”

“YES.”

Farlan lost his balance and crashed back to the floor. Marco would have laughed if it wasn’t so serious. But then Farlan got the upper hand and managed to grab Connie by his collar once they were both on their feet, and then they were dragging each other in equal measure down the street, kicking and slapping and yanking themselves away from one another as they went. It reminded Marco of a petty playground fight from when he was fifteen. Scratch that, it looked like a playground fight from when he was _seven_.

“Do you think Sasha’s seduced yet?” Eren yawned.

“Where are they even going?” Marlow asked, materialising next to Marco as he squinted down the street.

Marco squinted too. He saw them make a staggering beeline towards the park, startling a few crows in the process, and falling flat on their faces a stride later. “I think they’re going to the-”

“Fountain,” Mikasa finished for him.

Marco frowned. “The fountain? Really?”

“Hey, where there’s water, there’s a means of drowning,” Eren piped up unhelpfully.

Marlow let out a huff. “Well, are we gonna let them drag each other around in the water?”

“Give them a minute.”

“MIKASA.”

“Ugh, they’re nowhere near close to the fountain. They need to get it out of their system. Men are such morons they’ll probably forget about fighting before they even get wet.” When the other three pairs of eyes landed on her, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, _you_ would disagree, you are men.”

“Nah, I kind of agree with you,” Marco admitted.

“Thank you, darling.”

“Welcome.”

Eren squinted. “I think they’ve got to the fountain now.”

“DON’T YOU DARE”

“OH I FUCKING DARE ASSHOLE”

Eren nodded. “Yep. Definitely fountain.”

Marco didn’t wait for Mikasa to give a reluctant nod. He took off, sprinting down the street with a meek hope that no cars would turn the corner. With the light as bad as it was, they wouldn’t see the group of people surging towards them until it was too late. He wasn’t aware that they were being followed by the restaurant patrons until he turned his head and saw a stampede of secondhand suits and cleanest dresses tumbling after them. He felt the bile rise up in his throat. He hoped the police weren’t patrolling this area yet; if they were, it would be impossible to hide the feeble excuse of a fight from their sights. The quality of the fight wouldn’t matter to them- all they needed was the kindling.

Connie and Farlan were teetering at the fountain’s edge by the time Marco and the others reached them, both windmilling their arms frantically to stay upright. Both looked tired, and a little embarrassed that there were so many people gawping at them- but they remained stubbornly lodged together. “This- is- stupid-” Farlan said through pants, clutching hold of Connie as they swayed backwards again.

“Do you give up?” Connie asked.

“N-Never, but… if I’m going in, I’m taking you with me.”

Connie hesitated. “Fair enough,” he shrugged, and with an enraged shriek from Farlan threw them both backwards into the foot of water at the bottom. A splash rose up that shouldn’t have been as large as it was, and Marco dived forward for Connie. He managed to grab a fistful of shirt collar and hauled back, dragging Connie off of a gasping Farlan. Connie’s shirt was soaked through, and Marco could feel the cold seeping through his jumper and clinging to every little fibre. He shivered. “That’s enough,” he ordered, ignoring the way Connie struggled against him. When he almost got an elbow to the stomach, he gave him a shake. “Connie! Enough!” Like a terrier, Connie went limp. Marco could still feel him simmering under the surface, a kettle of bottled up emotion that had clearly been waiting too long to explode out, and kept a tight hold of him.

“Wow,” Eren said as he neared them. He made a point of avoiding Connie’s soaking form “Uh… Con’, I would say good job but… that was kinda lame.”

“Shut up!” Connie hissed.

Eren blinked. “Well, he has more balls this way. Maybe you’ll be able to get Sash pregnant too, champ.”

Connie shot him a look of loathing, but suddenly all attention was diverted back to Farlan. He was being helped out of the fountain by a bystander, completely drenched and coughing, and Marco had to admit with some satisfaction that he looked a little wary of Connie. “You’re crazy!” he spat, mildew dropping from his shoulder as he was pulled aside. “You’re- fucking- _insane_.”

“I’d rather be insane than a guy who abandons his pregnant girlfriend!” Connie shouted in retaliation. Marco took a step back, dragging Connie in his wake. Where was Sasha? She was the one who needed to be here.

As if his prayers were answered, Sasha emerged. She pushed her way through the crowd with Ymir and Christa flanking her. Ymir looked _delighted_. “This is the best birthday _ever_ ,” she whispered gleefully. Christa shushed her. Sasha had her arms folded tight across her chest, her belly bulging out bigger than ever, and Marco winced at the look on her face. Shit, she was angry.

_Ohhh they were in for it now._

She glanced at both Connie and Farlan, her usually doe-like eyes narrowing into furious slits. Marco blanched. “Are you both done yet?” she demanded. No one spoke. “I am so embarrassed! You’re like a pair of four year olds, what the hell is wrong with you?!”

Connie opened his mouth to speak, but Marco gave him a sharp squeeze to shut him up. No one got in the way of a Sasha Braus rant unless they had a death wish. Marco had learnt that the hard way.

“If this is some sort of testosterone fuelled joust for me, I have to tell you that you’re in the wrong decade. I’m not some _prize_ to be fought over, and neither is my baby. I’d rather they had no father than one who decides it’s okay to start a scrap in the middle of the street. And yeah, you heard right,” she added when Farlan made to shout a disagreement, “ _my_ baby. I don’t see you carrying around something the size of a melon for nine months.” She kept looking from one to the other, making sure she dished out equal amounts of disgust and disappointment to both of them. Marco could feel the secondhand hit of her anger, and he tried to shrink away himself. “I don’t see how either of you are ready to be a father when you’re dragging each other around like animals.”

“Sash-”

“Darlin-”

“No.” She held up a hand with a huff, pressing her fingers to her temple. “I don’t want to talk to either of you right now. I’ll talk to you both later.”

“But Sash-”

“ ** _Later_**.” She cast Marco a look that suggested he sort Connie out, then vanished back through the crowd, muttering darkly to herself and shaking her head. Marco wanted to go after her, but he knew there wouldn’t be a point. She wouldn’t speak to anyone.

Ymir grinned after her. “Ooh hoo hoo, yer in the shit there baldy,” she said. “She made you look a right wee bampot.”

“Satisfied?” Marco hissed in Connie’s ear, and all of the fight seemed to leave him. Marco hoped it was over now, as Connie grew heavy in his arms and the water from the fountain began to sink into his bones. Farlan was gone, shrugging off the help and fleeing into the darkness. He had the right idea- the police could get there any minute. But Marco was fixed in place. Soon, he was hugging Connie more than restraining him. He tried to tell him that everything would be alright, that Sasha just needed time and never wanted him to do anything so stupid again, but the words stuck in his throat. How could he tell Connie that everything was going to be okay? He didn’t know. What was the point? Everyone told him that everything was going to be okay, but ‘okay’ felt like nothing more than a sugar pill. It did nothing but tricked you into feeling better.

Strangely enough it was Eren who stood up to the job, and as he spoke in a hurried voice to a ferociously nodding Connie, things snapped.

“Eren?”

Marco frowned. He knew that voice.

Eren knew it too. He wheeled around like a cornered animal, eyes bulging, and the man who’d helped brush the mildew off Farlan came into the dull light of the street lamp. His jaw was a little squarer, his body a lot more healthy in look, but it was obvious. His voice hadn’t changed, for one thing. Marco let go of Connie. He didn’t even think about it; it was a simple knee-jerk reaction. A chill ran through him like he was seeing a ghost stood before him. He might as well have been- that was what he’d become in their lives, after all. “Reiner?” he questioned. The very name set Eren on edge. It was like a command for a trained dog- and it was not a good command. Marco grabbed hold of Eren’s hand, knotted their fingers together for leverage and yanked him back to stand at his side.

Reiner looked better than he ever had at university. He had the look of private rehab about him, something his distant parents would be all too happy to pay for, but then again he never had gotten in as deep as Eren. He scratched the back of his head, the blonde fuzz on top of his head grown out a little now from the army style crew cut it had once been, and as he stared at them both and nodded, Marco felt something ignite.

“Jesus,” Reiner breathed eventually, the exclamation bringing him to life. “Y-you’re alive?”

Eren squared his jaw. He couldn’t speak, Marco could tell that; every time he tried to open his mouth it shut again like a steel trap. He was shaking though, shaking so badly that Marco could feel the tremors up his arm, and all he could do was squeeze his hand and _not let go._

“I thought you were- you were pretty bad,” Reiner continued, stepping forward. Marco pulled Eren back. “I wasn’t even sure you’d get to rehab in time, man, fuck.” His eyes travelled down Eren’s arm to where his hand was being clutched tight. His brow furrowed. “You guys are together now?”

Marco answered for them. “No, we’re not,” he said, casting a worried look Eren’s way. Eren didn’t move. Satisfied, Marco looked back, and fixed Reiner with a glare. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Reiner blinked. “It’s a free country, isn’t it? I didn’t even know you two were still in Trost, I mean after what happened with Thomas… he was such a nice guy, it’s such a shame that he-”

“Shut up.” The voice that cut through the quiet was Eren’s, though it sounded strained. Marco looked back to him, panic rising in his throat. _Oh, no. Eren, please don’t start._ “Don’t you dare say his name.”

Reiner’s shoulders hunched up, immediately on the alert. “Look, Eren, I didn’t mean-”

“How dare you say his name!” Eren’s voice was acidic now, and the sound ate away at Marco’s willpower. He knew he couldn’t let Eren go. He _knew_ he couldn’t. But at the same time, he was tempted. Oh God, was he tempted. “How _dare_ you think you can talk about him like he thought you were anything more than a piece of shit.”

Reiner bristled. “Eren, come on now-”

“You left me,” Eren said, his words stark and biting. “You left me on my own. You got me hooked on those _fucking_ things and you left. He hated your fucking guts, and you know that.”

Reiner snorted. “Sorry if you were a fucking junkie who didn’t know when to quit when you were ahead. It wasn’t exactly my problem once you chose them over me.”

Marco let Eren go.

Eren attacked like a rabid wolverine, doubling Reiner over with a single headbutt and an accompanying punch to the abdomen. He didn’t stop there, either. Once Reiner was winded, Eren just pulled back his fists and let fly. The crowd that had gathered for Connie and Farlan’s lacklustre performance was now forming again, a few encouraging shouts for them to rip each other’s throats out. Marco rolled his eyes. Charming. “Eren!” he shouted, trying in vain to get a grip on him, but Eren was too fast for him. He darted out of the way- and into the path of Reiner’s fist. The punch that landed on his jaw sent Eren sprawling with a yelp, and he fell badly on the ground by the fountain. “Oh shit,” Marco hissed, diving for him before he had the chance to get up.

“Come on, nothing to see!” he heard Marlow call out, waving his hands in as authoritative a way as he could manage. “Let’s just take it easy, alright? We’ve got it under control, no need to be so-” Someone tried to shove him aside. Marlow shoved back. The stranger’s hand curled into a fist too quick for Marlow to judge, and the blow burst a cry of, “Shit, my FUCKING nose,” and Mikasa stepped in. “Try that again, I dare you,” she hissed, and that seemed to be the final spark needed for the fire. In a matter of seconds, the street descended into chaos. To Marco, everything became a mass of limbs and shrieks and heavy sounding punches.

He scrambled for Eren again, thinking only about grabbing him, grabbing the others and getting the hell off the streets before the police were called, but Eren was on Reiner’s back. Marco realised, with a sense of growing horror, that Eren was actually trying to strangle him. The horror grew stronger when he realised he was _succeeding._ “Eren!” he shouted, “Eren, for God’s sake, let go of him!”

Reiner was choking, his body bucking wildly to get Eren off whilst Eren held on like a limpet shouting and swearing he would kill him, and out the corner of his eye Marco saw a shape hurtle towards them and grab hold of Eren’s hair, yanking his head back as Eren howled in pain. Something red flashed in front of his vision, and then Marco was striding towards them. “Hey!” he shouted. “Leave him alone!”

The stranger either didn’t understand who Marco was talking to or just refused to listen. Either way, when Marco marched up to them Reiner’s ally wheeled away and swung a feeble hit in Marco’s direction. “Big mistake,” Marco hissed, and without warning slammed his fist square into the stranger’s ribs. Pain burst through his knuckles like ice and fire all at the same time. He hadn’t realised how bony his assailant was; he’d punched what felt like bare bone, and _fuck_ did it hurt. It brought tears to Marco’s eyes at the shock. He shook his hand with a grimace as his opponent dropped to his knees, wheezing, and he managed to get out a hissing, “S-stay there,” through gritted teeth. “Don’t go any closer.”

“O-o-okay,” the person whimpered. “O-kay, I’m s-sorry, j-just…d-don’t h-hurt h-him…”

“I won’t,” Marco promised. He looked to Reiner and Eren, and huffed. There really was only one way to break them apart. Reiner’s friend wouldn’t like it, but…

Reiner let out an ‘oof’ when Marco charged into him at a flat out run, sending the pair sprawling into the road. Somewhere away from them, Reiner’s companion yelped. Marco didn’t care. The moment the concrete bit into his palms and scratched them to pieces he scrambled to his feet and knocked Eren free, the hurried gasps of Reiner enough to calm his racing heart. Good. Breathing was good. Before Eren had the opportunity to recover, Marco rolled him onto his back and pinned him to the ground. “Eren, you fucking idiot!” he yelled into the wide eyed face he was met with. “What the hell were you thinking?! What if the police got here?! They’d have arrested you!”

Reiner was dragged to his feet by his would-be rescuer, and as they stood together the fumblingly tall friend starting touching Reiner’s face desperately, hands shaking as he felt out the curves and crevices to check he hadn’t been injured. The small kiss Reiner dealt the other’s thumb as it streaked down his cheek made Marco’s chest clench. Reiner was whispering something to his evident boyfriend, casting worried looks back in their direction, and Marco swore he heard the name ‘Bertholdt’ uttered in the snatches of words that drifted to them. When they finally peered down at Marco he gave a sharp jerk of his head. “Get going,” he said, “before this idiot does anything else.” ‘Bertholdt’ nodded feverishly, and yanked Reiner away. Reiner didn’t even look back. They just ran, breaking into sprints as they left the street.

“M’sorry Marco, m’sorry,” Eren mumbled, wiggling feebly under Marco’s weight. “I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Do you ever think?” Marco said, turning back to him. Eren sounded quieter now, and the way he avoided Marco’s eye showed how ashamed he was. Marco scoffed, and brushed a thumb against Eren’s brow. “He got you good. You’re gonna get a black eye.”

Eren wrinkled his nose. “I could’ve taken him.”

Marco sighed. “I know. And that’s what worries me.” He squinted through the strands of hair in his eyes to the scene laid out in front of them. Mikasa was kicking the living daylights out of something (or someone) whilst Marlow looked on in abject horror, Ymir had two squirming opponents under one arm whilst giving another a kick with her free leg, and Christa and Connie were stood in the corner staring at the scene laid out before them. Marco sighed. “Happy birthday, Ymir,” he muttered.

Eren gave a weak chuckle. “Hey, she fucking loves carnage. It’s what she lives for. She probably thinks it’s Christmas and her birthday rolled into one.”

Marco hung his head and wheezed out a laugh. “True.”

He didn’t feel better. ‘Better’ meant that he was free of the weight dragging behind him. ‘Better’ would mean that his knuckles wouldn’t feel broken, or his hands wouldn’t be sliced from the fall. But he certainly felt _something_ , and that something didn’t hurt as much as the rest of his emotions. He figured it was a start.

But then he looked up, and saw a pair of feet enter his vision.

All at once, everything slammed back into his chest like he’d been kicked there. He knew those battered old Converse anywhere.

When his sights trailed up further, he saw Jean’s wide eyes staring back at him.

Marco didn’t know what to do. It was the first time in his life that nothing ran through his head, nothing at all except white noise, and it looked like Jean was experiencing the same thing. They just stared at each other. Marco’s chest felt like it was being squeezed tighter and tighter. Every intrusive thought suddenly came rushing back like a runaway train, and hit him all at once with demands of ‘what is he doing here?’, ‘why is he out this time of night?’ and the killing blow, ‘where is Claudine?’ He choked on the last thought, the vulgar taste in his mouth too much to bear.

But then Jean spoke.

“Sh-should’ve known you’d be in the middle of this.”

It wasn’t a familiar greeting, but it wasn’t an angry one either. Jean just seemed stunned.

It was enough to break Marco from his paralysis. “I told you I can’t help myself,” he managed to say. It was his own little triumph that he hadn’t stumbled over his words, even though his body was going into hyperdrive.

Jean looked down at his shoes with a dry chuckle, then glanced back up. “Guess not.”

Marco realised, a beat later, that he was squeezing Eren’s wrist so hard small nail crescents were appearing in his skin. He opened his mouth to apologise, but Eren was looking at Jean too- and his was not a good look. Eren looked _incensed._ Marco scrambled free with a grunt of apology and dusted off his jacket, hands shaking and fumbly as his head jerked back to Jean. He kept his eyes on him in case he vanished like a ghost into the ether, and the flash of panic abated when he saw that Jean was still very much there, still breathing and solid. He took a step towards him, and breathed a sigh of relief that Jean didn’t step back. If he had, Marco wasn’t sure what he would have done. “Jean,” he breathed, hoping it wasn’t the last time he’d get the chance to say it. He took another step. “What are you doing out here? The police’ll be here any minu-”

“I don’t care.” Jean’s voice was small, but the look in his eye was fierce. “I had to take a walk.”

“Without Claudine?”

Jean hung his head. “She’s fine. She’s sleeping.”

Ice clattered into Marco’s stomach. He wanted to scold Jean for leaving Claudine on her own, but it died the second Jean glanced up. He looked terrible. The street lamps cast his face in a sickly light that did nothing to help the gaunt, tired look emanating from him like a smell. If his eyes held dark circles under them before, they were nothing compared to the curved out caverns that sat under his eyelids now. Jean didn’t look like he’d slept in weeks. Some part of Marco wondered if that was true. His hair was lank and unwashed, his jaw dotted with stubble he’d missed shaving, and the whole look of him was a boy haunted. Marco felt his heart come to spluttering life, if only to bleed a little at his feet. “You’re not,” he murmured. “You’re not… fine, are you?”

Jean twitched at that, but said nothing to deny it.

A gunshot made them jump. It punched through the air like a promise, and all eyes turned to the man who held the rifle, smoke curling out of the end like a serpent. “You can all just fuck off home, you bunch of sick brats,” Levi snarled. “Get off my street else the next bullet will be in one of your thick skulls.”

The fights around them ripped apart almost instantly, the sound of faint sirens in the distance growing louder enough to scatter the group into the backstreets. Men leapt over fences, dove into bushes, even clapped their opponents on the back for a fight well done as they ran like hunted animals back into Trost’s underbelly.

Marco watched them run for a moment, his breaths coming in short gasps, but a few didn’t leave. As they came closer, he recognised them as Mikasa, Marlow, Ymir and Christa. Mikasa rushed towards Eren, ignoring Jean as she leant down to pull him up- and quickly gave him a smack around the head. “OW, ‘Casa!” Eren complained. And then, without breaking stride, she walked past Marco and flew straight at Jean. She didn’t even hesitate in slapping him hard across the face.

“Mikasa, no!” Marco yelped, but Eren held him back with a curt shake of his head. Marco tried to wrench his arm free, but Eren held fast.

Jean clenched his jaw as his head flew to the side. He didn’t even bother putting a hand up to his face to touch the burning skin; he just let his head remain there, staring blankly at nothing as Mikasa glared him down. “Are you pleased with yourself?” she hissed. “You’re the first person in three years to break my best friend’s heart. Congratulations.”

Jean’s eyes slid shut. A breath rattled through him.

“Have you got nothing to say to him? Nothing at all?” Mikasa demanded.

Still nothing. Jean couldn’t even keep his head up.

“You broke his fucking heart,” she repeated. “I didn’t even know there was anything left to break, but you found it.” Her lip began to curl with her speech, and her eyes narrowed still further. “I had to help him through Thomas, and I never wanted to see him go through anything that again. But guess what? We can’t all get what we want, can we?” She leaned closer, her voice like ice in the cold air that lay between them. “You are a sad, scared little boy, Jean Kirschtein, and I pity you.”

“Please stop,” Jean said weakly. He sounded as though he would break apart if pressed for much longer.

“Why? Does it hurt, hearing the truth, huh?”

“Mikasa, stop it!” Marco snapped. This time, she listened. With a grumble she stepped away, muttering that Jean needed more than just the one slap and a few home truths, and Marco took her place. He made sure he was softer though, ducking his head to meet Jean’s eye and trying to fix a comforting look on his face. “You alright?” he asked.

When Jean looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “I’m okay,” he whispered through pursed lips.

“The truth.”

Jean closed his eyes again, hiding the treacherous tears from view. “I… I want to go home, Marco. I just… w-want to go home.”

Marco wanted to hold him. He wanted to hold him tight and not let him go, not for anything. But he could imagine the way Jean would stiffen, would pull away, would panic, and let the urge remain squashed in the back of his mind. It was how it had been before. Marco had to remember that. He no longer had permission to be as close as he wanted. It shouldn’t have snagged on the sickness in his chest as much as it did. He just nodded, barely put a voice into the “okay” that fumbled for purchase on his lips, and turned back to the others. The look on his face had to have given something away, for Eren looked angrier than ever.

“Oh, you are fucking _kidding_ me?” he snarled.

Marco blanched. “E-Eren, come on…”

Eren shook his head. “No, I’m not coming on. Not this time.” His gaze landed on Jean, and the anger only grew. “I warned you, Kirschtein. I fucking warned you. Grow some balls or I swear to god I’ll do good on my promise.” He tugged on Mikasa’s sleeve with a final glare in Jean’s direction, and Mikasa fell into step with him, falling away from her own simmering anger and back into the gruff comforting mode she reserved for Eren and Marco alone. One by one, the others filtered out, passing underneath the stripes of yellow light from the street lamps as they went. No one looked back; if they had, Marco would have had a hard time seeing it. They slipped away quietly, without a second cry of protest.

Marco waited a moment before setting off, driving his hands into his pockets to save himself the temptation of grabbing for Jean’s hand. His movement had startled Jean, for it took him a moment to catch up, but when he did he kept the pace slow, head inclined to the floor as they walked. They were silent for a moment, before Marco cleared his throat. “What did Eren promise you?”

Jean paused. “He told me if I hurt you he’d hunt me down and skin me.”

Marco winced. “Yowch, even for Eren that’s steep,” he joked.

Jean didn’t laugh. “They all hate me.”

It was said as a statement, but Jean might as well have shouted it for the way it pierced Marco’s already bruised sympathy. He looked back to see Jean’s lip quivering beneath the flash of white teeth. _Oh no, please don’t do that._ “They’re angry,” Marco admitted, “but they don’t hate you.”

“Yes they do. I can see it in their faces.” Jean gritted his teeth. “I fucked up again.”

“They’re hurt, Jean. People that get hurt need healing.”

They skirted the park, the lack of light too daunting for even Marco at the time of night, and turned down the better lit side street.

“Are you angry?” Jean asked.

Marco thought about it. He could say yes. He had been, in the early times. He’d been furious that the promise of something so good had been snatched from his grasp, but all that had given way to the empty hurt that still sat snug between his ribs. He was angry- had been angry- but now he saw Jean, he couldn’t bring himself to be. He bit his lip, shook his head and carried on.

“You should be. It’d be what I deserve.”

“I know,” Marco admitted after a beat of silence, “but I’m not.”

“Oh.”

“Mmhmm.”

They walked the remainder of the way to Jean’s house in silence, though it did not fall as comfortably as it once had. Marco found himself trying to think of things to say, almost willing them to the surface, then sending them back down. Jean was no different, casting these longing sorts of looks at Marco when he thought he wasn’t looking. Little did he know that Marco watched him from the corner of his eye, blushes appearing in blossoms whenever he felt the burn of Jean’s stares. It was nice, being looked at again. He tried not to get used to it.

The next surprise came when, upon walking up to Jean’s door and hanging back, Jean gave his jacket a yank. Marco looked quizzically at him. “Ihaveantisepticinside,” Jean blurted. “F-for, y’know, your, uh, h-hands.”

“Oh.” Marco paused. “You… want me to come in?”

Jean bit his lip. “Well, unless you want to get Tetanus…”

Marco didn’t have a choice. He knew he wouldn’t have walked away in a million years. The house was cold when he entered, colder than normal, and he frowned at the way his breath escaped in a cloud in front of him. He looked to Jean for answers, but got nothing; Jean just kept his back to him and scurried down the hallway, running a hand through his hair as he went. Marco was relieved to find that the main room was warmer, all thanks to a small space heater plugged into the nearest socket. He wondered, with a sting of irritation, if it was a gift from Hitch.

Everything looked the same. Marco wasn’t sure what he expected; paintings torn down? Expensive looking furniture? The photo of Jean and Hitch, back on the windowsill? The burn in the pit of his stomach at the thought had to be pushed down a little harder. As Jean vanished into the kitchen, it was as though the argument had never happened, and Marco had just been away for a little while. He felt the tension, however; it rippled through the air like sonar, bumping off Jean’s jagged form and pelting straight back to him. It was winding in its intensity, and Marco wasn’t sure if he would be able to cope with it all over again.

A delighted squeal caught his attention, and when he glanced to the cot, Claudine was peeking through the bars at him. When she saw him staring, her small smile grew wider until he could see the tiny white teeth crowning her gums. He looked to the kitchen, wondering if it was too far, but when Claudine squealed again his mind was made up. “Hi, sweetie,” he said, trying not to make his voice wobble as he walked over. “Long time no see, huh? I thought you were meant to be sleeping!”

Claudine kicked her legs with a sheepish giggle, the sheer joy and excitement in her face at seeing him again almost too much to bear, and Marco couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on his face, along with the threat of oncoming tears. “G-got some nice little chompers growing there, haven’t you?” Another squeak. “D-did you look after your dad for me, like I said? B-because you have to look after him, remember. He l-loves you very much, and-”

“I’ve got the antiseptic.”

Marco jolted away from the cot to see Jean dragging a cardboard box and chair towards the centre of the room. When he drew near, Jean motioned for him to sit on the chair, and pulled up the cardboard box as a makeshift stool. Marco sat. He daubed a small amount of clear liquid onto a cotton ball, and beckoned for Marco to give him his hand. Marco obeyed, wincing when the antiseptic got into contact with the cuts on his knuckles, but the chiding click of Jean’s tongue silenced him. “How did you even manage to break the skin?” Jean asked. “You were only fist fighting, right?”

Marco made a face. “Can’t be sure. The guy was pretty bony. It’s probably because I had to tackle Eren to stop him committing first degree murder.”

“Explains how you scratched up all your hands.” Jean sighed, turning Marco’s hands over to get a better look at the damage. “You gotta be careful, this city’s crawling with germs. I’ve got some bandages, I’ll soak them in antiseptic and dress those grazes. They look fucking awful.”

“Yes, nurse.”

Jean shot him a glare, but continued working. The tension still bounced between them, but if Marco closed his eyes he could pretend that everything was back the way it had been. At least Jean hadn’t lost his caring streak; stubborn as Marco was, he knew that Jean spoke the truth when it came to his cuts. He was so careful, touching Marco’s hands with such quiet solemnity that he usually reserved for the pages of his books. His eyes seemed to spark every time they met Marco’s, and it was odd to see them return to dullness a moment later. Claudine broke Marco’s reverie with a grizzling cry. “She’s not been so good lately,” Jean said before Marco could ask. “I know I said she was, but… she’s been crying a lot. Wants to be held all the time. Shit like that.” He let out another sigh. “I think she’s nervous.”

“Maybe she heard what you said,” Marco replied. He couldn’t help it. The words just tumbled out.

Jean stiffened, but said nothing. It was like the argument slashed something ugly in the ground between them, and he was trying to forget it was there. He looked back to Claudine, cracking open his lips with his teeth yet again, before standing up and seeking out a little white box that held various plasters and medicines. The bandages, once soaked, were wrapped around Marco’s palms bit by bit, mummifying the wounds and causing a ferocious sting from the antiseptic, but Marco didn’t utter a word. He was too busy watching Jean, memorising the little crease that appeared between his brows when he concentrated and the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips. He wasn’t sure how long he would have to appreciate it. The moment, calm though it was, felt borrowed from someone else’s timeline. It would come to an end, like all good things, and then what would happen?

His answer came when he let his eyes trail off Jean and the pain for a moment- and they landed on a dry-cleaning bag hung up by the futon. “What’s that?” he asked.

Jean didn’t even look around, though he twitched at the mention. “It’s a suit,” he said. He ducked his head lower like he was trying to check something on the bandages, but Marco knew otherwise. He knew nervousness when he saw it.

He frowned. “A suit?” It was probably vastly inappropriate to start visualising Jean in a figure hugging suit, but Marco couldn’t help his mind from wandering.

Jean scratched the back of his neck and gave the bandages a gentle prod. He looked apologetic at Marco’s wince. “Yeah…”

“What’s the occasion?” _Keep it polite, keep it interested._

Jean started to bite his lips again. “It’s for tonight.”

 _Oh._ “Tonight?” Marco repeated.

Jean’s nod looked more like a spasm. He leaned away from Marco, gesturing that he was okay to twitch his fingers in the bandages he’d fashioned for him. “T-there’s this get together…thing at Hitch’s parent’s house,” he said. Marco froze. He hated the way Jean avoided his eye. “Th-they want me to come. They don’t… they don’t know Hitch and I aren’t together anymore.”

And there it was; the rock that had started its hopeful float from Marco’s stomach to the surface tumbled back down, coating everything in the bitterness that, like silt, was thrown up in its wake. He looked away, trying his best to hide the painful swallow he afforded his dry throat. “Oh, r-right. Don’t you think it’d be a good time to tell them?” He didn’t want to think why Jean and Hitch had kept it quiet. Maybe circumstances changed. Maybe they wouldn’t have to tell her parents anything. Maybe they could go on living a lie. The very thought churned the bitterness still further.

Jean lowered his head and chose not to answer. “It’s a favour,” he mumbled, “seeing as they were my family once. Just a favour. I owe it to them.”

“You don’t have to justify it to m-”

“Yes I do.” Jean’s eyes caught the light he flicked them back to Marco. There was a fierce, accusatory look to them. “You know I do.”

Silence sat between them. Claudine fussed a little in the background, but for once Marco didn’t pay attention to her. He was watching Jean, watching the way his eyes widened still further and the fear flashed across his face. It was the fear that kept him up at night and clawed away at his insides. Marco reached out to him and covered his shaking hand with his own, threading their fingers together like they were never apart, and offered a smile. Friendly. That’s what he had to be. He had to be a friend. He could do that. “I’m sure you’ll look very handsome, Jean.” _Okay, maybe he couldn’t totally do it._

Jean blushed to the tips of his ears, but gave a small scoff. “B-bullshit, the fucking suit is too small. I got it when I was eighteen for an end of exams ball my school threw.”

“What kind of school did you _go_ to?”

Jean fixed him with a sour expression, but all it did was cause Marco to bark out a laugh. “Come on, seriously, who throws their students a ball after exams? I just got smashed at the nearest pub with my friends.”

“I really do walk with dinosaurs here, don’t I?”

Marco laughed. He hadn’t expected to; it had caught him by surprise, especially in light of the Hitch issue, but it felt good to hear bubbling up from inside him. It seemed to have shocked Jean into cracking a smile too, and then both of them were chuckling to themselves. Marco tried not to let the comfort get to him, but when Jean looked up from his laugh and only let his smile grow wider, it was hard not to get swept up. “So, in this, er, ‘ball’ thing,” Marco said, once he got his breath back, “did they teach you how to dance?”

Jean shook his head. “Nah, think they expected us to know already.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, ours is clearly a tale of two cities so you don’t get to judge.” Jean looked down at their entangled hands and seemed to draw strength from them. “Mam always said I got two left feet. Gram thought the same. No matter how much I try, I can’t get ‘em to work properly.”

Marco grinned. “Well, you clearly had the wrong sort of teacher.”

Jean shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe I did.”

He was cautious when Marco’s fingers slid away, the smile falling as Marco rose to his feet and crossed the room to a little radio he saw sitting on the windowsill. He hadn’t seen Jean use it since he’d known him, but he assumed that the music was soothing for Claudine. He turned the dial around, fiddled with a few knobs and buttons, before a slightly crackly signal came through. He pursed his lips as he listened to the rhythm of the music bleating its way through the airwaves, and glanced back to where Jean sat. “Well, there’s never a bad time to start.”

Jean’s eyes darted from Marco to his suit. “Marco, the party-”

“-will involve dancing,” Marco finished for him. “If you want to impress people, you’re going to have to know how to dance. Part and partial of one of those fancy get togethers, right?” Jean shrank back as Marco offered his hand to him. “Come on. I have some moves on me.”

Jean squeaked something that sounded an awful lot like, “I know”, before he gave in and kicked the chair and box aside, stepping over and taking Marco’s outstretched hand. Marco beamed.

The pinpricks of pain from his grazes were compared to the weight of Jean’s hand clasped in his, trusting and steady. He didn’t know why he was doing this. He was supposed to be hurt, upset, meant to be getting to the bottom of Jean’s insecurities and fear, and instead here he was, trying not to hyperventilate at how Jean’s thumb gently squeezed his own. _Breathe Marco. You got yourself into this situation, you have to ride it out._ “Okay, so they won’t be expecting much. Just some swaying, probably. But you have to make sure you lead, or else you’ll step on toes,” he instructed, drawing Jean a little closer. “It’s all about footwork. No one really cares about where your arms are.”

“How do you know all this?” Jean asked, staring vehemently down at their feet as Marco showed him the way to step into his partner’s space and then out of it again, brow furrowed in concentration.

“I had to stand on ceremony too once,” Marco replied. “I had lessons until I was twelve.”

Jean started mimicking Marco’s movements, cursing when he stepped out of beat. “Bullshit.”

“Sad but true.”

Jean huffed out a short laugh, but it was cut off when Marco laid his hand on his hip. He chewed on his lip as he looked up. “Wha-?”

“You’re leading.”

“Oh, r-right.”

“You just have to follow the beat you can hear. One two three, one two three…” Marco smiled as Jean’s feet tentatively did as asked. “That’s it! Keep it up, and don’t make it so jerky.”

At first, the movements were manic. Jean’s nerves shook up his feet and made them unsure of themselves, but after the first song finished and another started up, he was moving a little more naturally. Jean’s thoughtful expression was slowly moulding into one of triumph, and when he glanced up there was a smile nestling at the corners of his mouth. “I’m getting better,” he said.

Marco nodded. “Yeah, you are,” he said with a grin. “I wouldn’t say you’re a natural, but you’re getting there.”

“Thanks. I’d like to see you try to teach Claudine this stuff.”

“She can’t even walk yet, so that’s a bit unfair.” Marco paused. “Are you taking her with you?” For some reason, the thought of Claudine being hounded by a group of bourgeoisie made his skin crawl. Claudine didn’t belong to that sort of life, and he had a feeling Jean knew it.

Jean made a face as he glanced over at her cot. She was sleeping, finally sleeping, her tiny body rising and falling with every breath. “I was going to,” he said doubtfully. “But she hasn’t slept today. If I wake her, I’ll have hell to pay.”

“I can look after her.” It rushed out in a single breath, and when Jean raised a brow Marco gave a small shrug. “It’ll save you the hassle. I’ll stay here. It’s not a problem.”

Jean frowned. “Why would you do that for me?” he asked. “After what I-”

“Old time’s sake,” Marco answered with another shrug. “And maybe I can’t help helping. Slave to my own instinct, I guess.”

Jean made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and began to sway with the music, his hands on Marco becoming a lot more confident as he moved. “Thank you,” Jean said. “For… for more than just this.” Marco’s chest wound tight at Jean’s words, and dared to press their bodies closer.

He could feel the way Jean’s pulse skipped at the movement, and the way his feet skittered to compensate, but he decided to take over. Jean wasn’t even aware of the change in lead, and if anything seemed grateful that he could fall into step with Marco and follow his example. Marco was more sure of himself, and was able to get them swaying nice and slowly to the next song that crackled through the radio. He knew the universe had it in for him when he heard the beginning words to a Madonna song. Jean heard it too, but instead of making a jibe about how cheesy it was or pulling away, he simply sighed and nestled his head against Marco’s collarbone. Marco gulped at the more-than-platonic gesture, and slowly, carefully traced his hands down Jean’s back until they came to rest at his hips. He felt more than heard Jean’s sharp inhale, but by then his hands were gone, running back up his back in a way that made Jean turn his head and brush his lips against the wool of his jumper. Marco’s heart jumped.

Marco wetted his lips and moved his head so he could look at Jean. He looked lost in a daydream, eyes glazed over as his thoughts, unbridled and free, galloped. He swore, that second, he saw Jean lean in- or maybe it was him doing the leaning. He couldn’t be sure. He gulped again. “Jean,” he said in a hushed tone, “I’m sorry.” The words felt heavy coming out of his mouth, and felt heavier still when he felt the way Jean pulled against him.

“Sorry for what?” he asked. Their slow, swaying dance was coming to a stop.

Marco closed his eyes. Breathed deeply. What was he sorry for? Sorry for the fight, sorry for telling the truth, sorry for being sick and not telling him? He opened his eyes again, his mind made up as he started to sway them again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t hate you,” he said. He wanted to. Dear god, he wanted to. Hating Jean would have made things easy, would have driven the wedge between them far quicker and make the break clean. Marco wanted nothing more than to hate Jean, for his own benefit. But he couldn’t. He just _couldn’t._

Jean’s eyes widened. For a split second, Marco saw the galaxies dancing once more in his irises, the glaze from them vanishing. “Marco, I don’t-”

“I know you don’t think you’re worth it,” Marco cut in. “But you are, Jean. I can’t do it. I can’t hate you, or pretend that this doesn’t hurt.”

Jean bit his lip, angling his eyes down. “You looked happy when I saw you with Eren. You were laughing.”

Marco gave a pained smile. “Then you don’t know me as much as you think you do.”

When Jean made no move to pull away, Marco leant back in, kept their same meandering pace, and let his head rest on Jean’s bony shoulder. They didn’t speak for a while, content in just being close to one another, and Marco wondered if Jean was feeling the same tension he was. He could have been blocking it out, he guessed, but when he felt Jean nuzzle into his jumper again it was obvious. Jean was holding on just as much as Marco was. That realisation made him clutch Jean tighter, turn his face into Jean’s hair and simply breathe. “I missed you,” he murmured.

Jean’s grip on him tightened at his words. “Is this how you make everything better?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Dancing?”

Marco thought back to the last time he’d danced like this, in another room and another time, with his tears staining the fabric of a cotton T-shirt as he tried to memorise something that would be gone so quickly. Last time, Thomas was the one crying on him. Last time, they were dancing around and around Thomas’s dorm room like they were the last two people on earth, kissing and touching and holding as long as they dared whilst the opened envelope sat on the bedside table like a death sentence. He and Jean weren’t the last people on earth, but the pain in Marco’s chest was similar. It wasn’t the same- it couldn’t ever be the same- but there was still that feeling of impending loss, less biting but nevertheless there. He could imagine that, for the moment, the world had stopped turning just to grant them this one instant in time. “Guess it’s a signature move,” he admitted. Jean said nothing. “Is it working?” he dared to ask, smoothing the hand up and down Jean’s back again. He felt him quake.

“M-Marco, please don’t start this again. Don’t make _me_ start again. You know I can’t… I shouldn’t…” Jean let out an agonised groan and dug his nails into Marco’s waist, so much so that Marco felt a dull sting. “I c-can’t… people look and they judge and I don’t want you to have to wait for me… you’ll get bored…you don’t need me.” Jean was shaking now, his steps stumbling and clumsy.

“Jean, sssh.” Marco tilted Jean’s chin up to catch his eye, and saw with a twist of his stomach that Jean was holding back tears. “Jean,” he repeated, “I asked you a question at the hospital. Do you remember?”

The ferocity of Jean’s nod meant that tears broke their banks and fell like rain onto Marco’s jumper, but Marco didn’t care. “Y-you asked if I wanted to be with you,” Jean mumbled. “But Marco, it’s more complicated than that. It doesn’t matter what I think. I can want and want and want but it won’t make any fucking difference. You’ll find more than me, someone who’s worth it, I can’t…”

“Do you know what I want from you?” Marco asked. He was rocking them together, swaying gently from foot to foot as Jean did nothing but hold on. He nuzzled his head against Jean’s jaw and listened to the way his breath became a shudder. _He wanted this._ He wanted Jean warm against him and safe, his fingers curling around his arms and his head on his chest. He wanted something that had been so close, but then so far away. He let out a breath and leaned in close, his lips brushing Jean’s ear. “I want to grow old with you, Jean.”

Jean’s grip on his jumper tightened. “Marco, stop this,” he said, half sobbing in his plea.

“Jean, please, just…” Marco gritted his teeth. “Just let me say it, alright?”

Jean stilled, but the music still kept them swaying, bobbing like corks in an infinite ocean. Marco wanted to press a kiss to the spot just next to Jean’s ear, but wasn’t sure if he could get away with it. He sighed, and shifted so their heads were pressed together, his eyes sliding shut as he tried to think. “I want to grow old with you,” he said, his chest heaving at another little sob from Jean. “I want all those ridiculous domestic things that everyone has. I want an apartment that has hot water all the time, and a ceiling with no holes.” Jean’s breath hitched. “I want to see Claudine grow up. I want to wave her off when she goes to school, to university, and I want you there to tell me off for being such a big baby for crying. And you know what else?” He pulled away and cupped Jean’s face in his hands, fingers skating across the damp cheeks and swollen lips. “I want to hold your hand when we’re old and know we’ve had a good life, alright? A really, really good life.” Jean was crying now, his shoulders cracking and breaking apart as he sucked in air between sobs, and Marco leant in to finally brush a small kiss against his temple. “And I would stop, I swear I would. I would walk away if I thought that you didn’t want that too. I don’t need you, Jean, but that doesn’t matter. I _want_ you. And I’m sorry.”

Jean shook his head, tried to breathe deeply, clenched and unclenched his hands that had dropped from Marco’s waist and were now straight by his side. “See, w-why do you have to say those things?” he said, his voice as waterlogged as his eyes. “I thought if I hurt you enough you’d be able to walk away. But no. Y-you come back, and like a fucking _idiot_ I let you.” He was tangling his hands in his hair as he stepped completely away, not even bothering to swat away his tears now. “Y-your friends hate me, so why can’t you?” he said, in a voice too small to be recognisable.

It was a valid question. It was a question that Marco constantly asked himself. He had every right to hate him, as everyone kept telling him. Jean had opened up four year old scars, ugly and deep wounds that Marco had hoped would never bleed again. He knew that Jean was aware of how much they hurt. He used them like riot shields to push Marco away, further and further in an act of confused kindness that just left Marco bruised. He shouldn’t justify Jean’s actions. He really was in deep.

Marco shook his head. “I see who you are, Jean. They’re… not quite there yet. They will be, in time.” He shrugged. “You’re just another scared kid, and no one likes seeing their mirror image.”

Jean stared at him then, stark and afraid, and Marco could see the look that attracted him to danger in his eyes. It was the look of someone who needed help, but wasn’t sure how to ask for it. It was the same look that had drawn Marco to him in the first place, on that bridge in the dark. He’d seen the fear right there and then, but getting to know Jean had shown him the fire. He’d gotten too close, burnt the wax around his wings, and now he had to deal with the fall.

He let out a low sigh, and then a chuff of sad laughter. “Look what you do to me, Jean,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Look what you fucking do to me.”

“Don’t.” Jean was covering his eyes now, his shoulders shaking. “Don’t talk like that.”

Marco flinched. “Like what?”

“Like a writer. Like I’m some… wonderful character in your story with a happy ending tucked around the corner. You said yourself, you stopped writing because you realised those kind of endings don’t exist. This life is cruel, and it’s dark and it’s savage, and we all have to look out for ourselves in this place. We’re creatures of instinct.” Jean sniffed and threw his arm aside, the tears rolling down his face now. “We can’t afford to be who we want to be.”

“We can try,” Marco said fiercely. “And we won’t know anything for sure until we do.”

Jean scoffed. He turned away. “Trying is for strong people, Marco. People like _you._ ” He paused for a moment, breaking away completely to begin striding the length of the room like a panicked animal. “B-but I’m not like you. I’m not strong. I need to be sure there’s someone to catch me whenever I jump.”

Marco remained silent. He let his eyes follow Jean around the room, and wondered if this was better or worse than before. Jean didn’t hate him; that was clear from the way he talked. Marco’s words, however harsh, hadn’t been sharp enough to pierce vitals. There was still a hope, small and butterfly-like that fluttered in his chest, that Jean might even want to be with him. But what was larger, what was crushing and heavy, was Jean’s conviction that something dictated they couldn’t be together, no matter how much they wanted it. Was this Hitch’s doing? Deep down, Marco knew it had been there long before Jean met her; this was an old monster, its claws having sunk deep into Jean from years of family pressures and money worries. It had brewed under Jean’s skin and poisoned his blood, and that sort of feeling was hard to shake. Marco understood that.

He lowered his head and ran his hands through his hair, unsure of what to do next.

“Marco, I’m going to the party.”

The statement dropped between them like a death knell. Marco looked up. Jean purposefully avoided his eye, as though afraid the contact would change his mind.

“I’m going to the party,” he continued, his voice strained, “a-and then I’m going to spend the night at Hitch’s.” The implication in his words made Marco feel sick. They clearly made Jean feel the same, for the remainder of colour in his cheeks drained as he spoke. “It’s what they’ll expect me to do. I don’t know what I’m doing. I am fucking breaking _apart_ but please, understand that I have to do it this way. This isn’t the choice I want to make, but it’s the choice I have to. A-and… Marco, you have to be okay with that.”

Marco’s stomach sank. He lowered his head again, felt the blood pound in his ears, and closed his eyes tight. “Jean, I am never going to be okay with that,” he said, “and neither are you.”

Jean flinched and dropped his head down, defeat in his tone. “I know,” he said, almost sobbing, “but what choice do I have?” He snaked his own arms around his torso, holding himself tight to ensure he didn’t shatter. “I am _poor_ , Marco. Poorer than most. Poorer than you, Mikasa, fuck even Jaeger’s probably raking in more than me!” He gave himself a squeeze for good measure. “I have _nothing_. I can’t risk losing what little I already have. Don’t you see?” He looked up again, his eyes swimming. “It’s checks and balances, Marco, that’s all. Checks and balances.”

“Checks and balances.” Marco echoed. His chest had become hollow again, where for a brief moment it had been full. “It’s checks and balances when you’re happy to try sleeping with someone you don’t love.” He didn’t ask. It was a statement.

Jean tensed like he was ready for another slap. “Marco, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be…”

“If it’s so hard then why are you doing it?” Marco asked, on his feet now and staring. He wasn’t angry. He was scared. Scared of what Jean was willing to throw away in the pursuit of acceptance.

The worst part was, he didn’t get an answer. Jean just tugged at his hair, walked past Marco, and snatched the dry cleaning bag off its hanger. “You know where all of the baby stuff is, right?”

Marco didn’t want to stay anymore. He didn’t want to see Jean get ready for Hitch and her parents. He didn’t want to see him get all dressed up, only to have the image of him being stripped bare hours later. The urge to just leave rose up within him, but the moment his eyes fell on Claudine it sank back down. He was in trouble. He was in up to his neck, and the worst of it was, he wasn’t even trying to swim. He was happy being drowned, if it gave him a few glimpses of the surface he craved. He ran a hand back through his hair and nodded, numb to what he knew would come later. “Yeah,” he answered, “yeah, I know where everything is.”

Jean pressed the bag close to him like a barrier, and kept his eyes away like Marco was some sort of Medusa. “She had food earlier, but if she wants more there’s half a pot left in the microwave.” His voice was robotic, dead. “If she gets cold, there are more blankets upstairs, or you can put on the space heater. You can call for pizza or whatever.”

Marco shut his eyes as he slumped onto the futon. “Please don’t do this,” he whispered.

Jean looked like he wanted to reach out to him- then thought better of it. “Marco, I have to, just… just s-stay there, I need to get changed.” And then he was gone, fleeing up the stairs like a deer.

Marco didn’t even watch him go; he was too busy raking his hands through his hair and cursing under his breath. What kind of situation had he got himself into? It was black and gnarled and spiky at both ends, and he couldn’t even begin to visualise a way out of it. If he left Jean alone, he hurt. If he came back, he hurt even more. He had to be a friend to Jean, a really good friend, but how could he when his own heart said otherwise? He was selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish…

Jean came back in the tight fitting suit a while later, and Marco couldn’t help scrambling to his feet to look him over. Jean looked like he came from another world; anything remotely scruffy or soft was ironed out to nothing but sharp edges and neatness. The colour in him was drained down to simple black and white, and even his hair looked paler to match. Marco had never been the self-conscious type, but as he stood looking this Jean-that-wasn’t-Jean up and down, he felt the snarl of mediocrity coming to bite. Jean finally met his eye, and tried a weak smile. “H-how do I look?” he asked.

Marco couldn’t speak. He simply stepped forward and cradled Jean’s face in his hand, looking him over. “Very handsome,” he answered first, then when Jean looked away, “You look like a stranger.”

Jean wheezed out a breath painfully and let their heads knock together, twitching at the contact but staying there nonetheless. “I have to go,” he said simply, the words sounding like a goodbye. “I’m going to be late.”

“Don’t,” Marco said, carding a hand through Jean’s hair to roughen it up just a little. “Don’t go.”

Jean was so close their breath was filtering between them, and with every breath it seemed as though he was going to lean in and change his mind. But then, through his breaths, he whispered, “I have to, this is who I am.”

Marco shook his head. “We both know that’s not true.”

Jean opened his mouth, closed it, then made a beeline for the hallway. Marco followed him, only reaching out for him when he reached the door. When Jean turned around he stepped right into the space he made for him, hands coming up to frame his face as he looked at him. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You know that, don’t you?” he said, watching as the alarm in Jean’s eyes turned to remorse. “I can’t make you stay. I know that. But please, _please_ don’t think you have to be like them.”

Jean sucked in another breath. “Marco, the taxi’s here.”

“Do you promise me?”

“Marco…”

“Please.”

Jean sucked in another breath. “Marco, please don’t.”

Marco didn’t want to. He really wanted to have the strength to let Jean just walk out and be okay with it. He leaned forwards and closed the gap between them, kissing Jean as chastely as he could manage, before pulling away and giving him a sad smile. “Why?” he asked simply.

Jean’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, the colour returning to his face momentarily as he stared at him. “Because this is breaking me enough as it is.”

Marco stepped away, dropping his hand from Jean’s face and tucking it into his pocket. Jean was leaving. He had to respect that. It didn’t stop him feeling like he’d left something behind, though. “Have fun at your party, Jean,” he said. The words were cold and dead on his tongue.

Jean’s eyes widened, and half a word tried to wrangle its way out of his mouth until a horn blared angrily in the street outside. They both jumped. The taxi driver was getting impatient. Jean hung his head, gave Marco one last glance, then wrenched the door open. He didn’t look back after that; he just ran, hand swiping at his eyes as he clambered into the taxi, and that was it. Gone.

Marco let out a shuddering sigh and ran a hand over his face the moment the taxi vanished from sight. “Shit,” he whispered. “ _Shit_.” He slammed the door behind him with another curse, and slumped against the wall. He looked up to the ceiling, blinking back the tears that wanted to streak down his face, and grimaced with the frustration of it all. Jean had done it. He’d chosen the money. He’d chosen the comfortable option. He’d chosen _Hitch._ Some part of Marco didn’t blame him. Trost chewed everyone up and spat out the pieces. Jean had been through the digestive system of the city once- it was only normal to get out while he had the chance. That’s what Jean had been taught, after all.

Marco shut his eyes tight, shaking his head a little to shift away the ache that rose up like a tidal wave. He would do this one thing for Jean. He would look after Claudine this one night. And then he would be gone. He couldn’t keep doing it to himself, fooling himself into thinking that something was working out right for a change only to have the opportunity snatched away again. If he did it for much longer, the remaining parts of his whole would crumble away for good.

He heard Claudine cry out, and dragged the parts of him together. “Okay, Bodt,” he said to himself, “Keep it together. You can’t cry for that boy, come on.”

With another insistent wail from Claudine, Marco walked back into the living room. After all, he thought as he let the door to the main room click shut, Jean wasn’t his to cry over anymore. Perhaps he’d never been his in the first place.

* * *

Claudine had become more attention-seeking in his absence. When Marco wandered back into the room, she had demanded he pick her up with sharp little cries, and when he did she grabbed hold of him with a surprising amount of strength, and burbled a scolding into the side of his neck. He jigged her up and down, listening to her cries and wails of annoyance fade away, and soon she was just making gentle noises, content with the heat and security he was giving her. “There we are,” Marco soothed, daring to press a kiss atop her head, “Life’s not so hard, now is it?”

Claudine butted his chest in reply, wrinkling her nose at the feel of the stiff wool on her skin. Despite it all, Marco chuckled weakly, and lifted her a little higher to be free of the material that so disgusted her.

It was as though he was stuck in a waiting room with no doors. The hours dripped by, bit by bit, and he could already sense himself going back on his own promise. _He needs help,_ his subconscious told him. _Just one more day, just one more…_

Claudine continued to seek his affections. She smiled whenever he spoke to her, and cried when he tried to put her down. It was as if she knew of his plans to leave, and she was making the most of the time spent with him. At least, that was what Marco liked to think. After the sixth attempt, two hours later, to put her down, Marco huffed.

“Okay, Princess, that’s enough,” he said, scooping her up again after another loud bout of wailing. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?” The cries soon turned into snuffles, and she started to relax again. Marco bit his lip. “You don’t like being on your own, do you sweetheart?” he asked. More snuffling noises. “You know, I think you’re a lot like your father. I don’t think he likes being alone, either. I think he’s scared of it, just like you. If only we could show him, huh? If only we could let him see that he doesn’t have to be alone, right?” Claudine squirmed on his chest and let out a loud ‘BUH’ noise as she did so. Marco cracked a smile. “I wish, Princess. I wish.”

He picked up the music box and began turning it as the more elegant way he could without dropping Claudine, and set it down on the chair nearest him. “There we are,” he said, smiling as he saw Claudine looking for it. “Now, you have to go to sleep or else you won’t feel very well in the morning. So, how are we gonna do that, hmm?” Claudine blinked up at him, eyes large and trusting, and Marco smiled again. There was nothing else he could do in the baby’s presence.  She was her own little ray of sunlight in an otherwise dank and dark world, and Marco could see now why Jean wanted to put everything before her. He would do exactly the same, if given the chance.

When the music box came to a stop and he’d wound it up again, he began to sing. It was a soft, lilting song that he sung, something that came back to him from when he was little. His mother had sung it to him in thunderstorms, when the dark got just that little bit too friendly with his imagination, and the words tumbled back into his mouth like they had been waiting around a corner. Claudine listened, entranced, as he sang the lullaby about sheep galloping over the hills one by one to greet the rising moon, and along with the gentle rocks he gave her, her eyelids began to grow heavy.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Marco said in a hushed voice as she finally gave in and let them drop. He scooted over to the cot and slowly but surely lifted her off his chest and down onto her bed, inch by inch, until she was clutching her blanket in her tiny fist and breathing in slow, even little snorts. Marco tried to block out the swell of pride he got from watching her, and grabbed a nearby book to pass the time. Now was when the feeling came back. That missing feeling.

He wondered if Jean really would stay the night. Marco’s stomach twisted as he tried to stop imagining Jean and Hitch together, their bodies tangled together whilst their minds were elsewhere. The book he was reading did little to help, but he tried his best to get into it. Anything was better than being left alone with his thoughts for company. _Don’t think of him kissing her, don’t think of her putting her arms around his neck, don’t think of him gasping her name, don’t think, don’t think, don’t **think**_ **…**

Claudine had been asleep for an hour when Marco heard a key turn in the lock. He started from his half asleep state, slumped on the futon in a makeshift nest of blankets and pillows he’d constructed to stave off the cold. He batted the last remnants of slumber away and frowned. He checked his watch. Eleven. Not even midnight? He really did have a long night ahead of him. When the noise came again, he rose to his feet. He wondered if the landlord had a key and was coming to check up on something- though eleven at night was pushing his luck a little too much. The door opened with a creak, and Marco stayed quiet. He didn’t move, scarcely dared to hope…

When the figure strode into the room, all the breath left Marco’s lungs at once.

It was Jean. His suit was ruffled, he was shaking badly and it looked like he’d been sprinting, but it was Jean.

The warmth of relief made Marco cast off the blankets and step forward. Jean breathed in short, ragged gasps, but his eyes weren’t darting everywhere this time. They were fixed on Marco.

“Welcome home,” Marco blurted. Shame rushed through him at how personal and exclusive that had sounded. Jean stood there, openly gawking, and Marco felt his face singe with heat. He didn’t get a chance to apologise.

Jean rushed him like a hurricane. Marco yelped as they flew backwards together, narrowly avoiding the easel propped close to the futon. For one terrifying moment he thought that Jean was about to hit him, but then everything changed. His hands grabbed at the legs that were suddenly around his body, and his heart stuttered when Jean’s lips, searing and frantic, crashed against his own. Like steel moulding to shape in the heat of a blacksmith’s forge, Marco became alive again.


	18. Lost Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So fRIENDS it's back
> 
> Apologies about the slight hiatus on the chapter update front: I was super busy in November with National Novel Writing Month (which I won, by the way) and the busyness of Christmas and whatnot. January? Hell if I know Jan just flew by... but anyway. Here it is. The SFS update.
> 
> I can't thank you guys enough for your support lately- you're all wonderful and keep my writing mojo going strong! All of your amazing words and fanart is so humbling, so...thanks. You're the best.   
> I won't say anymore regarding the chapter, just...enjoy. And I hope it's worth the wait! 
> 
> As always, if you would like to contact me on my tumblr, you can find it here: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com
> 
> Hold onto your butts!

Coming alive under Jean’s lips gave a specific kind of pain. Marco’s sadness didn’t just fly out of his head the moment Jean leapt at him; it wasn’t the sort of thing that could just vanish. It quickly became a muted thing, a humbled thing, by the rush of _feeling_ that hit. That same affection he’d had before and tried to keep locked up didn’t trickle out bit by bit like it had done in the beginning- instead, it hit like a suckerpunch. It was something akin to whiplash, and Marco hoped that the pain wasn’t for nothing. The more insistent Jean’s lips became, however, the more convinced he was to let them run. He squeezed the back of Jean’s thighs and pushed them closer so he could feel every stuttered rush of Jean’s pulse. _He hadn’t gone to Hitch. He hadn’t given it up. He’d come back._ His breath mutinied over to Jean in the rush of the kiss, and all that remained was filtered between the two of them like a lifeline. His face was framed by Jean’s cold, trembling hands, fingers brushing the tips of his ears and thumbs tickling the laughter lines of his mouth. The cold didn’t matter. He would take the cold, if it meant having Jean shuddering against his mouth. He kissed back- how could he not?- and tried to ignore the small sob that came from Jean’s chest at the motion.

Jean pulled away, and before Marco could question him it all came out in a sobbing, broken rush. “I-I couldn’t d-do it!” he said, burying his nose in the side of Marco’s neck. “M-Marco, I c-couldn’t go through w-with it! I tried, I tried so hard, and I c-couldn’t- I couldn’t pretend anym-more, I just…”

Marco tightened his grip on Jean’s legs, his thumb brushing the thin cotton of his suit pants like a whisper. He’d thought Jean was drunk at first, but now he saw the truth. Jean’s panic was raw and bleeding, but he was rebelling against it all the same. “Shh,” he soothed, “Jean, ssssh, it’s alright. It’s alright, I’ve got you.”

Jean just sobbed and sank into him again, lips smeared with the salt of his tears. Marco shushed him in the space between them, tried to slow him, but it was like trying to stop a force of nature. Jean was fierce, hollowing his back at the slightest brush of movement and landing sloppy kisses on swollen lips. The tiny explosions that went off in the well of Marco’s chest created aftershocks, falling as soft noises between breaths, and it only served to make Jean’s lips more determined. The realisation of _he came back_ hit far deeper when Marco felt Jean’s hands dare to sink their way into his hair, and tug just a little. That was when he began to feel the hot sting of unshed tears behind his own lids.

He had forgotten what it was like to kiss Jean. The memory had faded like smoke into morning air, helped along by his mind’s protests to move on. But now everything was coming back; the way Jean shook in an embrace, or melted against his chest; the way Jean’s lips would press, firm and stubborn, into his own without pausing for breath; the way Jean would never pull away completely, scared to break their connection… it was happening all over again, and Marco was quick to fall.

He knew what he had to do. They had to talk, Jean had to explain, and Marco had to forgive him. That was how it went, how it always would go. But even as he pulled his lips away, Jean chased after them, their lips landing on one another's again and again like chisels onto marble. Jean didn’t want to talk. Marco knew he had to. They were at an impasse. But then Jean moaned, low and deep into Marco’s mouth, and his mind went blank. Soon Jean was the one pinned to the wall, and Marco was the one bearing down on him, licking his way into Jean’s mouth to hear that moan again, to feel it reverberate down his throat and cause his bones to quake.

He’d missed it. Oh god, he’d missed it. Jean’s legs were tight around him now, the gasps he was making coming from a different kind of desperation, and Marco pressed into him just a little bit more to feel his hips buck upwards. “Ahh, M-Marco…” Jean hissed, his breath hot on his cheek, “U-Up… s-stairs…”  

Marco was brought back down to earth. He opened his eyes and saw Jean looking at him, eyes clouded over and fingers twitching in his hair. “Y-you’re sure?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to stumble over his words; he couldn’t let slip the toxic feeling his stomach was suddenly offering him in response to Jean’s words. _Don’t you dare Marco, don’t you fucking dare…_

Jean didn’t say a word. He just nodded, curt enough to rile Marco’s suspicions, and let himself be lowered to the floor before taking Marco’s hand and yanking him back towards the hallway.

Marco baulked, but managed to cover it up as a stumble when Jean looked back. He glanced to Claudine, fast asleep in her cot. “What about-?”

Jean snatched up a baby monitor from the floor and kept on walking.

_Oh_.

It really was cold upstairs. The speed in which Jean pulled him up the creaky set of stairs meant that the change in temperature hit Marco like a solid thing, his skin immediately springing into goosebumps. It was dark too- there was no bulb in the fixture, Marco had checked- but still Jean led him on, down the landing that looked riddled with dust mites and old carpet, until he came to a door and pushed it open.

The bedroom was coldest of all. It was the lack of body heat, Marco decided, that caused it; there was no imprint of human interaction there at all, nothing but dust and starched sheets and bleak windows. The rickety old bed in the centre was what caught his interest, though, and he swallowed down a lump in his throat. When he looked at Jean, he saw that he was staring at it too, like a prisoner would an electric chair. That wasn’t a good stare.

Marco squeezed his hand gently. “Hey.” Jean’s eyes darted back to him. “Are you okay?”

Jean glanced back to the bed, gulped, looked back to Marco. His jaw set. “Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Jean didn’t let him talk further. He just brought a hand up to Marco’s face and kissed him, slow and sweet and sorry, and Marco sank into it just like before. Being with Jean felt like taking the smoothest medicine, and he couldn’t help his mind from wandering at that thought. When he’d talked to Eren about his past, Eren had admitted that he was an addictive kind of person. If he got a taste of something he liked, he would chase it down like a bloodhound, not relenting until he had that same hit he’d had a glimpse of before. Every time there was more of a glimpse, the door would open just a little farther, and that was when Eren knew he was lost to it. There was never a day he had enough and could just walk away. Every day was like the first time he tried it. Marco didn’t understand at first. Now he did.

He let out a whimpering noise and Jean moved back, running his tongue across the pink swell of his lip. Marco watched him in a daze, taking in the heavy blush patterning Jean’s face like watercolour and the questioning way he looked at him. Marco skimmed a hand, gentle and feather-light, down Jean’s arm until it came to rest in his hand. Jean twitched and looked down for a split second before the blush grew darker. He looked his age when he blushed.

Still, it didn’t appear to perturb him. Jean backed him slowly against the nearest wall, his hand creeping up further to curl Marco’s hair on his fingertips, and Marco knew that he really _did_ have to talk to him. Jean was still shaking, still _terrified_ of something, and as Marco ran a free hand down his spine and nestled him close, he tried to pull away again- but that was when Jean tugged on the strands entangled on his fingers, and Marco’s legs nearly buckled under the weight of the moan that flew from his mouth.

Jean blinked away, startled, but the look on Marco’s flushed face clearly answered his question, for he gave another soft tug and marvelled at the way Marco’s teeth gritted from the flash of arousal bolting through him. Jean came back for more, his kisses hard and demanding now and both hands in Marco’s hair to wheedle out the fevered pants and hard breaths that fell from Marco’s lips like drops of rain. “Not…fair…” Marco whispered between kisses, and Jean nudged his nose against his with a shy yet knowing smile before scraping his nails across his scalp. He had to catch Marco when he fell against him. Marco was sure Jean pushed his knee between his legs to keep him stable, but however innocent it was meant to be, his hips thought otherwise. They arched against Jean’s thigh, grinding ever so gently, and Marco bit his lip around the moan that wanted to come. That was when he felt Jean’s thigh move _back,_ deliberately brushing against his crotch and the straining cock against his zipper.

That was what brought Marco back with a jolt. The poison of panic welled up in his throat so fast he almost choked on it, and a stark warning flashed behind his eyes with blinding clarity. He couldn’t do it. He was not going to talk to Jean after humping his leg like an animal. He was not going to let Jean carry on when he was still shaking and scared. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t think like that. He _couldn’t…_

Though his primal mind screamed at him, he rested a hand on Jean’s arm. “Th-that’s enough,” he said. “Stop.”  

After a pause, Jean stopped. The air in the room seemed to change. The heat trapped between them fled away, leaving them both shivering and goose-pimpled in the dark. The panic ebbed away as quickly as it had come, leaving Marco with a numb sort of relief he felt ashamed of in the wake of Jean’s frown. “Wh-what?” Jean asked. The eyes that met his were wide and full of suspicion. There was hurt there, too, nestled so far into Jean’s expression that maybe he wasn’t even aware of it himself. Marco wheezed out a breath.

“I want you to stop, Jean. Please.”

Jean didn’t need to be told again. His hands fell away from Marco’s hair and promised no more taunting tugs. Marco felt his world adjust back. He relaxed- Jean scowled. “Why?” he questioned.

Marco stopped himself from cringing away from Jean’s look. This was what he was afraid of- what he was always afraid of. He knew how stubborn Jean could be, even if it was something he didn’t want to do. He let his hand drift down Jean’s arm and take him by the wrist, his eyes never leaving him. “Because this isn’t what you want,” he settled for, squeezing gently.

Jean looked down to his wrist and wetted his lips. He let out a small huff that Marco swore was meant to sound casual before he glanced up. “H-how do you know this isn’t what I want?” His eyes were still wide. He was still shaking, just a little. Marco didn’t have to know. He could _see._ Jean had been forced into things all his life. His family forced him into medical school when he wanted to be an artist. Hitch forced him out of his comfort zones. His own mind forced him into isolation.

Marco was going to be the person who didn’t force Jean into anything.

He tried to ignore his own panic that had so quickly fled from him, though he knew better than to let it fester. “I just do,” he replied, stroking his thumb along Jean’s wrist. He felt the veins jump beneath the skin. “I know you, and... this isn’t you.”

Jean gulped. His hand began to quake in Marco’s grip though his face remained the same. He wasn’t angry, Marco noted. He wasn’t demanding, or denying or even sulking. He was just… frowning, like Marco had given him a complex mathematical problem to solve. “Marco…” he began, then stopped. He bit his lip and wriggled his wrist free of Marco’s grip. For a moment, Marco thought that it was over. But then Jean took his hand, though his still trembled, and guided it down his body; down, down, past his chest and his stomach and even his hip bones until-

Marco sucked in a breath.

“Does that feel like I don’t want you?” Jean whispered, his eyes burning.

Marco wheezed. _Ohhh fuck._

He couldn’t help pressing his hand against the half-hard swell of Jean’s suit trousers and bit back a whine. God, he was torn two ways. Part of him wanted to do so much to Jean. He wanted to undress him with kisses and touches, carry him over to the bed and make love to him, the way he deserved, the way he’d thought about for so long, but…

He drew his hand away. “Th-that doesn’t mean anything,” he gabbled, face burning under Jean’s scrutiny.

“It means a lot,” he replied. “You… y-you have no idea what it means.”

Marco remembered what Hitch had said before. The voice, smoky and languid, flitted through his mind. _‘Jean ain’t cut out for women, wouldn’t be surprised if he ain’t cut out for men either.’_ Only now did Marco understand the weight of her words, and the strange look in Jean’s eye. This wasn’t normal for him. His body didn’t usually react in this way, to anyone. Marco let his right hand move up, let his thumb run along the swell of Jean’s lip and sighed so loud he was sure it echoed in the emptiness of the room. “Oh, my River Boy,” he murmured. Jean melted into the pet name like cream on a hot day, his lips pursing in order to kiss the digit presented to him. Marco drew him in, drank in his musk as he held him close. “Oh, River Boy, I know. I’m sorry, I understand.” He moved his hand away, curling it around Jean’s hip instead. He gave it a squeeze. “But…you don’t have to rush this.”

Jean reached up to chase Marco’s lips, landing a bird-like kiss on his chin in return. His next question, however, suggested he hadn’t quite forgotten.

“Don’t you want me?” His voice was smaller than ever, and cut a deep wound. It was a childlike sort of hurt, the kind an eight year old would use during a fight with his best friend, and it made Marco ache. He toyed with a few pieces of hair that had fallen in front of Jean’s face, and his expression fell soft as Jean closed his eyes, relishing the contact. Jean had been rejected before. Jean had been hurt before. Jean had come back to him tender and bruised, with a vulnerability he hadn’t shown many others. And here he stood, waiting for a rejection. It wasn’t to do with anything Marco was doing- it was just what Jean expected to happen. Marco kept that knowledge close, dipping into it as he saw Jean now, staring up at him waiting for the hammer to drop.

Marco ducked his head and kissed him gently enough to be reassuring, before pulling away. “Not like this,” he said. “I want you, Jean, but only when you’re certain.”

Jean shuddered. The heat was coming back, warming their bodies and making Marco’s legs heavy with relief. They were slipping back into the realm of the comfortable, ever so slowly, and with every breath Marco felt puff against his collar, the further back he was reeled. When Jean’s head moved enough so he could see him, there was the same frown on his face. “But…”

“I fell for all of you, you know.” Marco leant forward to nestle his head against Jean’s. He smiled when he felt Jean nudge him right back. “I can wait. Besides, I…” And there came that fear again. It rose up like a leviathan in the pit of his stomach, consuming everything in its path and forcing the bile up his throat. Pills couldn’t fix everything. He shut his eyes as he blurted out, “I don’t think _I’m_ ready yet.”

Silence.

When he opened his eyes again, Jean was staring at him. It wasn’t a bad kind of stare. “Y-you’re not?” Jean asked, clearly wrongfooted by it.

Marco’s heart broke to hear how hopeful he sounded. He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Oh.” Marco saw the tension in Jean’s shoulders loosen. “And you’ll wait? For me?”

He smiled. “So long as you wait for me.”

Jean made a small noise in the back of his throat and grabbed for Marco’s sleeve. “I th-thought…what with the party, and…Hitch, and…”

“It’s not a competition,” Marco said, letting his smile grow wider when Jean huffed and glared at the ground. “Just because you didn’t sleep with Hitch doesn’t mean you have to sleep with-”

“I thought that was how you’d know that I was…”

Marco shook his head. “Jean, it’s fine. I don’t need proof that you want to be with me. Just tell me that’s what you want, and I’ll be happy.”

Jean gave a sharp nod, the kind he gave when he was trying to keep his emotion in check. “Okay.”

Marco chuckled. The panic settled back in the pit of his stomach and lay there like a sleeping cat, growing warm on his relief. “Good. Do you want to go back downstairs? It’s freezing up here.”

Jean sniggered, swiping at the tears collecting in his eyes. “Y-yeah, f-fuck, go on you idiot.”

Claudine was still asleep when they got back, blankets snatched up in her tiny fists as she dreamed, and Marco let Jean pause to look her over as he scooped up _The Great Gatsby_ from the floor and set it down tenderly on the nearest shelf. When he looked back, Jean was hunched over Claudine’s cot, head hanging low as he watched her sleep, and he smiled. When Jean looked up, he had that same softened look about him that was hidden behind the suit. He blushed when he noticed Marco looking, and shed the suit jacket with a grimace. “I’ll be glad to get this fucking thing off,” he complained, his voice hushed in light of Claudine’s slumber. “Feel so… constrained…”

“Let me help.” Marco stepped towards him and tugged him closer by the cotton of his shirt. He’d tried not to sound too eager, but the quirk in Jean’s brow suggested he hadn’t altogether succeeded. He tapped the starched fabric and looked at him, questioning. “Is it okay if I-?”

Jean bit his lip and nodded. Marco started to unbutton the shirt from the top, inch by inch. The buttons were fiddly, especially the one tucked under Jean’s chin. Marco wasn’t even sure it was meant to be done up, but it was yet another example of Jean trying too hard. The moment was quiet, the cars on the street outside oddly muted, and as Marco drew down to the middle button he felt Jean’s lips on his cheek, gently pressing, and turned his face to offer a small kiss in return. “So,” he said, the words sticky on his tongue, “what happened?” It was the best place to start, even though he didn’t want to. Jean froze. When Marco glanced up from the buttons, he saw a hollow look in the tawny eyes that he knew too well. “Come on,” he urged gently, “you can tell me.”

When Jean spoke next, it was surprisingly together despite how nervous he appeared. “I realised I didn’t want to be their kind of person anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Jean didn’t answer.

Marco could imagine, though. He remembered having to stand in front of a mirror making sure his clothes were appropriate whilst his parents playfully argued downstairs about when he was going to give up writing and become a lawyer. Living up to people’s expectations wasn’t something he tended to do, but Jean was different. He had that guilt, that overbearing weight pressing on his shoulders to do well for the sake of his family, and Marco could empathise.

He abandoned the buttons once the final one was undone and took Jean’s hand, smoothing his thumb against the knuckles. “I meant it before. Those people don’t mean anything, Jean. Not if you don’t want them to.” Jean’s eyes flickered up. “I know that sometimes we don’t have a choice in who we have to spend time with, but that doesn’t mean that those people are any better than you. Half of them wouldn’t have the strength to live through what you have.” Jean huffed. “I mean it. You’re strong, Jean, even if you don’t think you are. You’re also weak, but that’s okay too.” Marco squeezed his hand. “No one can be a superhero.”

“You can.”

Marco let out a soft chuckle. “Is that really how you see me?” The fierce look to Jean’s expression told Marco all he needed to know.

He let go of Jean’s hand and started to brush the shirt off the thin shoulders, checking with a nod to see if he was comfortable before letting it fall to the floor.  In the dimming light, Marco could see the shadows dancing across Jean’s ribs, and the prominent way his collar bones jolted against his sun-deprived skin. As his eyes slipped lower, he caught sight of a few pale marks reaching out around his lower belly and hips like frost over a pane of glass. Jean drew his arms around himself at Marco’s scrutiny, and mumbled “I n-need to go get a bed shirt.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to-”

But Jean was already gone, nearly slipping over in his desire to get out of the room. Marco watched him go with a sigh, and glanced back to the futon. Jean had a long way to go. Then again, so did he. As if fate had heard him, his phone bleated in his discarded jeans. When he checked it, his chest grew tight.

**[00:10] _Patient Marco Bodt, you are due your sixth month review today. Your review will be held in Trost General Hospital with Dr. Ral at 12:00pm. Don’t forget to bring all current medication with you._**

He dropped his phone back onto his clothing pile. He wanted to throw it, but knew it was no use. He’d known the review was soon. He’d never be ready for it, however much he pretended he would be. The bile was already building in the back of his throat, his mind already racing with all the possible outcomes the review could bring- and zoning in particularly sharply on the negative ones. He hadn’t even told Jean yet. Had Jean seen his pills? Would Jean ask if he had? Marco huffed and turned away from the mocking backlight of his phone, running a hand through his hair as he thought. He wasn’t the flawless person Jean wanted him to be. He was nothing but Fool’s Gold, a trick played on those who believed they knew what something valuable looked like. The difference between the real thing and the mockery was the brittle nature of the latter. Marco gritted his teeth and shed his shirt with a flourish. To hell with it. The review wasn’t until he’d slept. He wasn’t going to just sit and wait to fall apart.

The sound of Jean’s feet at the doorway made him straighten up. When he turned to look at him, he couldn’t help the smile that sprang to his face. Jean gave an awkward smile in return. He was wearing a plain white shirt dirtied by nothing more than time, and swapped his constricting suit pants for some moth-eaten pyjama bottoms. Marco’s smile only grew when Jean sidled over, cheeks flared with heat. He didn’t have to find out. Not tonight. It was too soon, too raw. Marco could pretend that the only problem they had was behind them.

“Is this okay?” he asked, gesturing to himself and his underwear and little else. He was amazed he could keep his voice steady.

_Focus on Jean. Don’t worry about yourself. Jean’s more important._

Jean nodded a little too enthusiastically, and as he stepped closer Marco noticed the way he pulled his shirt down low over his hips. Marco sank onto the futon with a sigh, and watched as Jean coyly moved between his legs to tangle a hand in his hair. He hummed at the feeling, turning his head with every little motion of Jean’s fingers, and when he looked up saw that Jean was watching him with an expression that was close to awe. Marco blinked. “What?”

Jean shook himself. “Just… didn’t think I’d ever get to touch you again…”

Marco closed his eyes, relishing the scratch of Jean’s nails. “Well, now you’re here.”

Jean nodded. “Y-yeah, now I’m here.”

Marco leant forward and pressed his face into the clean smelling cotton of Jean’s shirt, inhaling slowly. He recognised the washing detergent. The smell settled his stomach. The phone message was becoming hazy, blown off kilter by relief.

Jean continued to play for his hair for a little while, the soft little snores of Claudine keeping them both from the brink of slumber, before he cleared his throat. “They were talking about me marrying Hitch. A-at the party.”

Marco pulled away to stare at him lazily. “Marrying her?”

Jean nodded. “Her parents thought we’d make a handsome couple.”

Marco tried to force down the bitter taste in his mouth. “I’m sure you would make a very handsome couple.”

“I…I guess so…” Jean sighed. “But just because we look good together doesn’t mean we’d be happy. I wouldn’t be happy. And I guess Hitch wouldn’t be either, judging by how many waiters she was trying to pull.”

Marco closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Of _course_ Hitch would be flirting with the waiters. Of _course_ she would avoid Jean like the plague the moment he arrived. Of _course_ she wouldn’t take the whole thing as seriously as Jean. Marco hadn’t known her long, but he could tell her type from a mile away. Jean’s fingers started to scratch against his scalp, soothing and causing his skin to tingle, and he reminded himself that the night could have gone so many other places.

His silence clearly gave Jean the wrong impression- assuming Marco was feeling sorry for him, Jean gave a loose shrug. “S’fine, Marco. Wasn’t exactly thinking about her.”

“Oh?”

“Was thinking about you, and… and how I left you alone with my baby at my house.” Jean bit his lip. “A-and I kept asking myself how I could’ve walked away from that and got in a fucking taxi.”

Marco shifted back onto the futon but Jean came with him, scooting so that his knees were either side of Marco’s lap. He didn’t sit down in Marco’s lap- that would have been too much for Marco’s neglected libido to take- but the way he hovered, small and unsure, made something twitch regardless. Marco dared to trace his hands against Jean’s hips, still so sharp and defined beneath the soft material. He gulped at the way Jean sighed. “It’s okay,” he managed to get out. “You told me you had to go. I had to respect that. You don’t have to feel guilty about tha-”

“I do, Marco.” There was a firmness in Jean’s voice that wasn’t there before, and Marco let him speak. “I really do.” His brows creased as he looked him over, putting his hands to Marco’s face again to trace his freckles with his fingertips. “How could I have left you like that?”

Marco exhaled slowly. “Please don’t beat yourself up over it,” he said, lowering his voice to prevent Claudine from waking. “It’s not worth it, over someone like…”

“Don’t you dare say ‘someone like me.’” Marco jerked his head up. Jean’s eyes were bright in the dim light of the room. “You know you’re a lot more than just a someone. You deserve…” Jean huffed. “You deserve a lot more than my pissy ass. I…” He stopped; Marco wasn’t sure if it was for Claudine’s benefit or Jean’s self-consciousness. Jean breathed, then tried again. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?” he whispered.

Marco was glad that the gloom hid the welling of tears in his eyes. “Jean, we both said things we regret.”

Jean folded into him without another word, and Marco slowly shifted them both so they were lying together on the futon, covers drawn thick over them to block out the impending cold. When he scooted back to make room, Jean grabbed his arm to pull it around his chest. “Could you…hold me, like this?” he asked, ducking his head into his chest.

Marco bit his lip and nodded. “Okay.” He rested his chin on Jean’s shoulder and felt his entire body relax- a far cry from the weeks before when all Jean did was panic. What had happened at the party to warrant such a change?  There was silence for a little while, but Marco knew Jean wasn’t asleep. He was too still in his arms. Jean was a twitchy sleeper- and a kicker. That was why, when Jean sucked in a nervous breath, Marco wasn’t too surprised at hearing him mutter, “I _know_ I fucked up, Marco. I said such awful things to you.”

Attempts at sleep now danced tauntingly out of reach. Marco pressed his lips to the buzzed back of Jean’s hair at the nape of his neck, making sure to keep it soft before pulling away. “You were scared,” he said. “I understand.”

“Still am. You shouldn’t forgive me.” Jean’s voice was tiny. “I was such a dick to you.”

“I was just as bad, Jean.”

“I dragged Thomas into it…”

Marco felt a pang in his chest at the mention. Oh yes. The sharpest cut of all. He wet his lips and slowly ran a hand up Jean’s back, the bony ridges of his spine all too prominent. “You did drag him into it,” he agreed, “and that was a shitty thing to do.”

“I kn-know, I know it was, I was just …”

“You lashed out. But I lashed out too. We both said things that hurt.” He closed his eyes and curled his body closer into Jean’s. “But I stand by what I said before.”

Jean turned his head so that one eye, tawny and questioning, was on show. Marco saw the supernovas inside that iris, swirling around on an infinite path, and saw the fear and self-loathing too. “What part of what you said before?” Jean asked.

Marco leaned in close, hoping it was allowed in Jean’s list of Things That Were Now Okay, and pressed a small kiss behind his ear. “The part where I said I can’t hate you,” he mumbled into the soft down of Jean’s undercut.

“Y-Yeah?” Jean arched against him at the sensation, “That makes two of us.”

Marco promised that he would hold Jean until he fell asleep. The reality was that he didn’t let him go, not even when his breathing slowed and his legs began to twitch like a sleeping dog. He had his eyes fixed on his phone, lying like a sleeping spider in his pile of clothes. The black feeling came back, the cloud pressing around his senses and suffocating him with misled information and broken promises. Marco could scarcely breathe, he was so caught up in it all.

But then Jean turned over, reached for him, smiled in his sleep. The cloud vanished with the appearance of that smile. Marco hadn’t ever seen him do that before. Maybe, just maybe, Jean was stronger than he made out to be. And maybe, he could have the strength to get Marco through it.

He closed his eyes, buried his nose into the crest of Jean’s neck, and hoped.

* * *

The morning arrived grey. Marco could feel it behind his eyelids as he stirred, intrusive and gloomy, and when he cracked one eye open to wince into the too-bright stripes of light falling across the futon he could sense that same grey filtering into his body. For a brief second, he wasn’t sure why he had this sudden sense of foreboding in every cell of his body- but then the reality swung to hit like whisky to an empty stomach. The review.

He shut his eyes tight and opened them again. Same grey sky out of the window. Same beams of light. Same pale arms around hi-

He exhaled slowly. Of course. Jean. He looked down at him, still clinging with stubborn determination, and smiled at how ruffled his hair had become in the night. His head had moved from his chest, however, and was now nestled far more comfortably on a pillow. There was still a wheezing when he breathed, probably from the cold, and Marco couldn’t bring himself to move just yet. The covers rose and fell with every breath, the motion lulling Marco back from the worry that was pooling at his surface, and drew him to rest his hand on the dip of Jean’s waist. There was a twitch, but nothing more, and Marco bit his lip as he stroked the spot with his thumb. He’d really done it. He’d looked straight into the future planned for him, and turned his back on it. Marco felt giddy with the realisation that Jean wasn’t just a ghost, come to torment him; he was real and breathing and _there_ , and Marco’s chest hiccupped to see him shift about on the bed without a frown on his face. The dark shadows on his eyes looked like bruised, tiny galaxies resting on his lids, and they flickered every now and again as Jean’s eyes darted beneath them, but there was no hurt there. Marco smiled and creased his fingers in the bedcovers. Jean was cute on many occasions, but he was beautiful lying there in the fragile spring light.

Marco’s calm was shattered, however, when he heard the tell-tale buzzing of his phone. He got up with a grunt of effort and stepped over Jean as delicately as he could before darting over to his clothes and rooting through them for the offending mobile. When he found it, he noticed that it was a call.

‘ _Mikasassa’._ Crud.

He jammed the phone to his ear and began to pad to the hallway. “Hey, ‘Casa.”

“Hi Marco.” Mikasa’s voice sounded warmer than normal- always a bad sign. “You didn’t go back home last night. Sash told me. What’s going on, is everything okay?”

Marco sighed. “Everything’s… good, everything’s really good.”

He could almost hear Mikasa’s eyebrow raise. “Oh really? Jean stopped being such a colossal shitbag then? Huh. Maybe my slap knocked some sense into him.”

“Mikasa, please.” Marco huffed. “It’s a long story, but I’m at his right now. “Tell Sash not to worry about me.”

“Braver women would try. She’d tear down the entirety of Trost looking for you at this rate. She was furious after that whole Farlan fiasco- I saw Sasha angry that time Eren stole her last nacho, but this is another level.”

“Is she okay now?” Marco leant against the peeling wall, staring blankly up at the ceiling as he listened. Sasha shouldn’t have had to be on her own. He should have been there to spoonfeed her ice cream and blast angry music through their apartment like he always did. The sinking feeling that he had been too wrapped up in himself was shaming. Mikasa told him that Sasha was better the last time she’d spoken to her- “though she’s still pissed at Connie, I think she’s going to give him a few days so she can cool off and not decapitate him”- and Ymir passed on her regards and thanks for the best birthday so far. Marco rolled his eyes. Of course. Any trace of blood or violence and Ymir was in love.

Then came the clincher. “Anyway, enough about them. How are you feeling?”

Marco gulped. He knew she wasn’t talking about Jean. “I’m fine,” he answered. He’d really hoped she’d forgotten this time. “I’m… fine, I’m coping.”

“Your review’s in an hour, you know that right?”

Marco nodded, then realised she couldn’t see that and added, “Yeah I know, I got an alert on the phone last night.”

Mikasa went quiet. “Did Jean see it?”

“No.”

“Does he not know?”

Marco sighed. “No, he doesn’t.”

More silence. “Marco, you have to tell him.”

“I know that!” Marco said, exasperated. “Don’t you think I know that? Of course I have to tell him, but… how do I even start?”

Mikasa hummed thoughtfully down the phone. “I don’t know, but if you think this thing with him is serious then he has the right to know. And he needs to know _now_ , before you guys get in any deeper.”

Marco ran a hand through his hair and let it flop uselessly at his side. Before they got in deeper? That was a few months too late. “I know. He needs to know what he has to deal with. What pill-shaped hurdles I have to throw at him.”

“If he calls it ‘dealing with you’ then he’s not worth the time,” Mikasa said, curt and matter-of-fact as always. “Do you want me to come with you? You need to be there in an hour.”

Marco bit his lip. He didn’t know. Did he want someone else there? The thought sent a mixture of relief and shame through his system, though the former far outweighed the latter. “A-are you busy?” he asked.

“I can come,” Mikasa affirmed. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

Marco’s stomach gave a jolt. “Why should I be? It’s just routine.”

Mikasa’s thoughtful silence down the phone suggested she didn’t believe him. She had every right not to- if anyone could read him like a book, it was Mikasa. “I’ll meet you at the apartment. I’ll bring my bike helmet.”

She hung up before Marco could mumble a goodbye down the line.

He turned back into the room, trying to stop his heart from sinking as he grabbed his clothes and started to pull them on, the stale musk from the day before still clinging to the fibres. He dressed quietly, being careful not to wake Jean from his place on the futon. When he’d pulled his jumper on, he snatched a spare scrap of paper from the side of Jean’s easel and a pen and scribbled a note, letting him know that he was heading out and that he would see him later. He promised to come back. He may have also added a smiley face, but Marco would never admit to it.

When he set the paper down next to the futon, he heard an indignant noise come from behind him. He looked around to see Claudine watching him, her large eyes blinking slowly through the bars of the cot. “Hey sweetie,” he cooed, voice low enough to keep Jean from stirring, “how long have you been awake?” He traced the familiar steps over to the cot, ears still trained on the shape on the futon. Claudine let out a squeal of delight that was slightly too loud to be ignored, and reached up with both hands to him, asking. Marco paused, look back to Jean, sighed. He picked her up, amid another excited squeak, and let her flop onto his chest. The smell of baby powder and mashed banana overwhelmed him for a moment, before he turned his head and pressed a small kiss to her tiny forehead. “There we are, Princess, nice and safe and warm, hey?” Claudine seemed to burble an agreement, albiet quieter than before, and set about gathering as much of his T-shirt into her mouth as she could and using it as something to suck on. Marco chuckled and humoured her for a little while, taking her on small walks around the room and listening to her soft noises, before he gently prised her away and put her back in her cot. “Now, I have to go for a little while. I know I told you to look after your Dad, but I need you to look after him for just a little bit longer, okay?” Claudine’s nose was wrinkled with the betrayal of being put back down, but Marco liked to think there was some sort of proud understanding that heralded from Jean in her expression too. “Good girl,” he said, reaching down to give her a tiny kiss on her cheek. Claudine giggled- and promptly fell forwards onto her face.

Only once Marco had righted her properly in a flustered panic did he step away and check his phone. His chest clenched. Forty five minutes. Everything in him felt heavy as he turned to look at Jean, still sleeping soundly. Even Claudine’s noise hadn’t been enough to wake him. He smiled and made to run a finger down his cheek, but thought better of it and let his hand curl back into a fist at his side. “I won’t be long,” he whispered. His phone sat like a dead weight in his pocket even as he lingered to watch Jean grumble and turn over, hair stuck up on end from an energetic slumber. He couldn’t stay. He had to go. He would be back. That was a certainty.

Marco left quickly, and tried not to hear the questioning noises of Claudine ringing in his ears.

* * *

Mikasa had been waiting for him. He’d arrived back at the apartment at a jog to see her already astride Bertha, her helmet tucked under one arm and gaze fixed on her phone. She was dressed for the morning, red scarf threaded around her throat and tucked beneath her leather jacket and fingerless gloves giving her hands some kind of relief from the biting cold. The moment she heard his footsteps, the phone was forgotten. Her eyes came up, and Marco saw the storm clouds brewing in them. “Hey,” he greeted, doubling over in an attempt to get his breath back.

“You’re late,” was her form of reply.

Marco opened his mouth to argue, but realised there was nothing to say. He tore past her into the building, took the stairs two at a time, and let himself into the apartment quietly. The place smelt of old takeaway and flat alcohol. He grimaced. Sasha really had gone all out. Thankfully she was still sleeping, if the gargantuan snores coming from her room were anything to go by. He snuck into his room, snatched the final pill pot from his glorified box of a bedside table, and was gone again before Sasha had even turned over. Marco was glad of it- a discussion about why he was sneaking about his own apartment in the middle of the day was somewhat questionable and not something he wanted to get into when on a tight schedule.

When he got back to Mikasa, she immediately tucked her phone away without comment. There was a little crease between her brows to show she’d been frowning, and as Marco stopped before her that crease only grew deeper. He waited for some words, but got nothing. Mikasa was good at silent treatments. Marco loathed the silent treatment. She gave him a once-over, eyes flicking over every inch of his body with the unspoken words resting on her lashes. He recognised that look.

“We didn’t do anything,” he said, straightening up in time to catch her raised brow. “We _didn’t_ ,” he pressed.

Mikasa cocked her hip. “I’m not your mother.”

Marco huffed through his nose. “Can we just… go, please?”

The finality of those words sent his stomach back on its spin cycle, but Mikasa nodded and threw him his helmet. His pill pot rested snug in his pocket as he swung his leg over the bike, but the strange weight it held pressed down on him at every angle. _It was going to be fine. Everything was fine. There was nothing to worry about. It was just procedure._

He took the roads of Trost slower than normal, knowing better than to rush when his mind was very clearly elsewhere. Every potential outcome swirled around in his brain to match the churning of his stomach, an endless mass of questions and panics and memories that hadn’t happened yet that almost made him drive into the back of a rather large van. Mikasa shouted something at him, but her helmet muffled the voice. The tone was enough of a giveaway; she was asking if he was alright, and if he wanted her to drive. He waved away her protests and shot up a gear just to remind himself that he could.

He didn’t want to be there, driving towards an unsteady future. He wanted the grey morning back, with nothing to wake him but Claudine’s cries and a sleepy kiss that left his lips numb. He wanted the raw light and the soft touches and the smell of drying canvases. He wanted to be wrapped up in Jean again, able to lean in and press a small kiss to the patch of skin just behind his ear. He was forced to swerve a little too enthusiastically to make up for his wandering mind, and got another muffled shout from Mikasa for his trouble.

Marco gritted his teeth. He had to stop thinking that way. Jean couldn’t be his escape. He couldn’t be his barrier to the outside world, to the grim reality that Marco had to stare in the face every morning. That wasn’t fair on Jean, and it wasn’t fair on Marco, either. Four years ago, when he had sat in the too-white room with the stench of disinfectant all around him, he had promised himself that he would never seek escape in another person again. It didn’t matter how much his head hurt, or how much his heart felt like it was being shredded, piece by piece, into confetti. It didn’t matter- because he _deserved_ it. It was what he got for believing that people were untouchable. He tightened his grip on Bertha’s gears. He’d learnt too quickly that people were as frail and delicate as moths, and it was only a matter of time before they burned their wings.

He overtook a tired lorry that choked out a complaint, and checked his watch. He had ten minutes. He’d make it. It was starting to rain, the threat from the morning springing to life in the droplets that smeared against his helmet and caused him to slow down. He felt Mikasa shiver behind him. She hated rain. She got colds too easily.

He swung onto the right road and followed it around in a wide arc, the feverish thrum of his heart against his ribcage nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the large white building that appeared around the final bend. His less formal reviews were never done at the hospital; they were always at a drop in clinic, with optimistic doctors and slow results. These results were instant, not to mention that they already had a lot of Marco’s cells on file. That was not the most comforting thought, granted, but it meant he could walk away still feeling mildly optimistic.

He turned down the little one-way road he knew so well and wished he didn’t, and chanced another look up at the spider-eye windows that stared right back at him. He suppressed a shudder. It seemed to swell and grow every time he visited it, like it fed off the misery and miasma of patients. The cold reality sat like a stone in the pit of his stomach, unyielding and too heavy to budge, and he began to wonder if Jean had woken up yet. He hoped not.

Once he manoeuvred Bertha into an acceptable spot, he killed the engine and just sat there, looking up to the sky. The rain was falling heavily now, from what seemed like an endless expanse of cloud that blotted out the sun and kept Trost cloaked in an early twilight. Marco was suddenly very conscious of the pot in his pocket. He swallowed painfully. He had to breathe. He had to remember that. Breathing was important. He felt Mikasa touch his shoulder. The touch was so small he barely felt it through his jacket, yet he still flinched. “Come on,” she said, “we’ll catch our deaths out here.”

Marco snorted. “Have you ever heard of irony?”

Mikasa didn’t reply. She just sighed, climbed off the bike and ducked into the shelter of the hospital entrance. Marco watched her wide-eyed, like a child whose parent was leaving it alone for the first time, and after a single pleading glance followed her. He took a glance back at Bertha, lying idle, and breathed out through his nose, extra slowly. Mikasa took his hand as he reached her, and brushed off some stray droplets clinging to his hair. “You ready?” she asked.

Marco shook his head and gave a wry chuckle. “Never,” he said.

Mikasa gave him a sad smile, the kind she knew made his stomach warm, and led him inside.

* * *

The inside had looked the same as when they’d been built in the Seventies. Marco shouldn’t have been surprised; Trost General didn’t exactly get the funding it deserved, no matter how much its managers complained. The rooms, however, seemed ageless- that’s what came with painting everything white, he guessed- and there was a distinct feel about the place that didn’t feel like the wards where Sasha had been kept. There were no bright murals or excited chatter. There was nothing. It was just quiet. For those who called the wards their home, there was nothing to chatter about.

Marco couldn’t stop his knee from bouncing. The little room they sat in was apart from everything else, so much so that the clinical smell hadn’t managed to wriggle underneath the door. It didn’t matter; it clung to his clothes instead, so ingrained into the fabric of his shirt that Marco knew he wouldn’t wear it for weeks afterwards. The testing part of the facility was in the heart of the ward, and he was glad he was back in a consultancy room now. He kept his head down whenever he was being tested, determined not to look up and see someone he recognised. That was the thing with coming so often; there were people he came to know, if only by looks. He’d even tried to make friends once, thinking that it would in some way make him feel better. It didn’t. It just hurt all the more when he sought out the faces in a crowd and realised why they weren’t there.

He poked the gauze wrapped around the inside of his elbow. The nurse had gotten a little stab-happy during his blood test- something about his veins not being easy to see- and he could already feel the bruise welling up under the surface. He poked it again, just to be sure. He winced.

“Stop fussing,” Mikasa chided, batting his exploring hand away. “You’ll make it bruise more.”

“Yes, nurse.”

She shot him a look of disdain, but it melted away quickly when she saw the lack of humour in his eyes. “At least they let you wear your own clothes this time,” she said.

Marco closed his eyes. Hearing Mikasa trying to be cheery was more painful than the needle. He took the bait. “Oh shush, I bet you’re gutted that you missed the sexy hospital gown.”

“Oh yeah, totally. Nothing could make me want you more.”

Marco snorted out a laugh, but it felt far away.

When the doctor came into the room, he stood up. “Petra,” he greeted. “How are you?”

Petra Ral always looked surprised to see him, like one day he was going to walk in and tell her he was cured. Marco wished that were true. She was a head shorter than him with a sympathetic expression that meant her bedside manner was exemplary from her peers. When she was working, her hair was always strained back into a pert bun, but Marco knew that when it was down it tumbled to her shoulders and never looked untidy. She’d dyed it. It suited her. She gave him a polite smile and took his hand. “Marco,” she said, warmth flooding into her tone that had nothing to do with her manners, “I wish we stopped meeting in these circumstances.”

Marco finally let a smile free, though it was frail as paper. “So cure me.”

Petra chuckled and motioned for him to sit. “So,” she said, “how are you doing?”

Marco glanced at Mikasa. When she raised both eyebrows, he sighed and turned back to Petra. “I’m… doing okay,” he answered.

“Do you feel better in yourself? You were feeling pretty down the last time we spoke.”

Marco tilted his head as he looked at her, safe behind her desk. It was hard not to feel bitter around her, this person who wasn’t trained to understand but to give good or bad news. The constant fight she must have had to put herself through dealing with patient after patient, trying to push aside her pity and focus on the bare facts, was the only thing that swayed Marco from being cutting with his reply. _They’re trying to help_ , he remembered telling Thomas once. _They just want to help you, please don’t get mad at them. They don’t want you ill any more than you do._ “I was… bad, the last time we spoke. I was finding it hard, without him.” He clenched his hands into fists and felt the bandage throb. “L-last time, it was coming up to his birthday.” Petra couldn’t quite stifle the sympathetic noise that came out of her mouth. “But I’m better now. Not over him -never over him- but better.” He looked down at his shoes, and the smile that appeared on his face was more genuine than before. “I… met someone.”

“Met someone?” This time, Petra’s interest couldn’t be kept in check.

Marco could feel Mikasa’s stare burning into the side of his head, but he couldn’t care. He met Petra’s eyes, and was reminded of Jean’s. His smile widened as he nodded, and he quickly cast his eyes down again. He was acting childish, like this was some ten year old’s crush in the playground at school. There was a time and a place for getting giddy about things, and sat in a consultancy room talking about his life threatening condition was not such a time. Mikasa was gawping at him like he’d admitted he rather enjoyed stamping on pigeons, and Petra’s gaze was fixed stubbornly on her clipboard.

“I-in that case… have you become sexually active lately?” she asked, still not making eye contact.

Marco’s smile faded. “No, I haven’t.”

“Okay. And are the pills you were prescribed working for you, would you say?” Back to the facts. Petra had strayed too close to the borderline; she had toed the gap between patient and friend, and she was backing away into the safety of her medical files. Marco understood. That didn’t make it any easier to answer, though. He gulped.

“The… the pills, they make me ill. And I’ve been feverish a couple of times. But it’s nothing to worry about.”

He laced his hands together and chanced a look up at Petra. Nothing yielded emotion in her face. Marco hated that. He could never figure out if there was good news or bad news heading his way.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Petra’s voice was clipped, back to her professional best, and Marco felt the heat get sucked out of the room. She made a few notes on her clipboard, chewing her bottom lip as she thought. “What kind of symptoms have you experienced?”

And here it was again. Marco tried to remain as clinical about it all as Petra, relaying the consistent side effects of the pills that made his life difficult. Nausea. Dizziness. Headaches. Body temperature changes. He reeled them off like items on a shopping list, refusing to let his gaze fall again as he watched her take notes. It all sounded so small and insignificant, spoken in such simple terms, but Petra’s medical judgement wouldn’t counter in the times he’d lay slumped in his bathroom, stomach wracked with spasms and tears rolling down his face in sheer frustration at his own body. Medicine didn’t work on feeling. It was a wonder Thomas could stand it. He’d always been the type to feel too much.

When Petra seemed satisfied with his replies, she stood up and said that she had to go retrieve his sample results. The anxiety that had lingered at the edge of Marco’s consciousness now pushed to the forefront as he looked up at her, knowing what it would mean if the results were bad. Petra knew it too- that was why she couldn’t look at him as she left.

The moment Marco heard the door swing shut with a pleasant squeak, he buried his face in his hands. He breathed.

“Marco?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s okay, you can-”

“I’m _fine_ , Mikasa. Just… give me a minute.” He was trying not to panic. He was fighting the anxiety back, threatening it with the last shreds of bravery he clung to. He would win, if only he didn’t get distracted. He knew he couldn’t hide his fear from Mikasa, but he wasn’t going to admit that to her. When his face came up, it was hard and stony. He could do this. He had to be the strong one. Back when Thomas got diagnosed, when the two of them sat crying on his bed away from sight and earshot of anyone else, Marco had to be the strong one. He had to step up to the plate, push aside that terrifying feeling of emptiness and do his job. He comforted Thomas. He prioritised. He was logical. He pressed a fist into his forehead, closing his eyes as the tears swam in his lids, before he swept them away and straightened up. He was the strong one. He was the strongest of all his friends. He had to be- who would take his place if not?

Petra came back slowly. Marco’s head snapped to attention as she entered, and suddenly there was no one left in the room but the two of them and the file tucked under her arm. Marco tried to gauge the outcome in her face, was Petra was frustratingly good at keeping an open expression. When she sat back at her desk, she gave a little sigh; Marco watched the way she dragged her fingers across the top of the file, tracing his surname with her nails. His chest constricted. “Petra…” he began.

“First of all, I need to see your medication,” she said. Her tone gave nothing away. Marco dug the pot out of his pocket and walked to her desk, depositing the rattling pills on the bleached white surface.  Petra’s eyes wandered down to them, and for a moment her professionalism slipped. “My god…”

Marco shrugged. “Some walk-ins can’t afford the good pills.”

“You’ve got… quite the cocktail there.”

“It’s the best they could do.”

Petra opened the file. He jolted when a hand grabbed for him and dragged him back. He’d forgotten that Mikasa was there, so intent had he been on staring Petra down. He sat back down, squeezed her hand, shuffled closer. Petra read through the results again- Marco knew she’d already seen them, this was all for show- and then she looked up. Marco felt the axe above his head rise.

“Marco, your count has dropped to 210.”

The axe fell.

Mikasa’s hand squeezed tight, but Marco was numb to it. _Two hundred and ten. He had been at three hundred last time._ He was balancing on the edge, staring over the precipice. Marco tasted his traitorous blood in his mouth, and it was then that he realised he’d bitten his tongue. He lowered his head, shook it, squeezed Mikasa’s hand back. What could he do? What could he say?

“Okay.”

The word was choked out of him, and he repeated it over and over as he sat up straighter, ran his free hand through his hair, over his face, checking his tongue was still intact. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“I understand that this isn’t the news you wanted.”

Marco snorted out a laugh. “Not really.” The voice that came out of him didn’t sound like his own; it was like a stranger had taken control of his vocal cords, played them in a key that wasn’t quite right. His blood roared in his ears. Mikasa was rubbing a hand up and down his arm, but he couldn’t look at her. Would she be sad, scared, angry? He didn’t want to deal with Mikasa being any of them. He’d expected to cry a little, no matter how much he didn’t want to, but it seemed the news had scared his emotion away. All he had was numbness, this distant kind of drifting that cut the connections between his mind and the room he sat in.

He wondered if he could convince Hyacinth to bury him with Thomas. They’d started this together, after all- it was only right they finished it together too.

“I’m sorry, Marco. We’re going to send your samples to another lab in case it’s a blip, but I can’t confirm anything at this time. It seems likely that it’s correct.”

Marco closed his eyes. “What caused it?” he asked, his voice slowly returning to him, starting to sound more like himself. “Why has my count gone down?”

“Marco…”

“I have the right to know.”

Petra’s eyes fell back to the page. “By the looks of things, and from what you’ve described to me, your pills aren’t working.”

He shut his eyes again. _God_ , his heart was _racing._ “What…” he licked his lips, winced at the sting from his bleeding tongue. “What can I do?”

Petra picked up his pill pot, turned it over, frowned. “We’re going to have to up your dosage again.”

Marco let out a humourless laugh. “They’ve already done that. Twice. Check your records. It doesn’t work. Nothing’s fucking working.”

Petra flinched at his curse, but flicked through the file regardless. Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been given more of the cocktail, not different drugs. What I suggest is that we try something else. A different kind of pill, something that only means taking only one tablet. It’s an older kind, used back in the 90s, and more effective, but… that does mean it’s also stronger.”

“So what you’re saying is I have to take something that will make my side effects even worse?” Marco asked faintly.

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that the side effects will differ.”

“So you’ll give me something that will stop me being sick… by making me sick?”

Petra made a face. “It’s not ideal, but it’s the best option we have at this time. I’m more than happy to put you on the waiting list for some clinical trials…”

“I don’t want to be a fucking lab rat.”

“Marco,” Mikasa said, tugging on his arm. When had he stood up? Come to think of it, when had he strode over to Petra’s desk, when had he leaned over her and gotten so angry?

He slunk back, washing a hand over his face as he turned to Mikasa. “Sorry,” he muttered to her, “s-sorry, I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, Marco.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I know sweetheart, I know, just… sit back down and listen to Petra, okay?”

Marco did as he was told. He sat.

Petra tried her best to comfort him. She explained that there was a new drug being tested, something that had limited side effects and positive strength for attacking harmful viruses. It only had a few trials left before it was declared fit for prescribing to patients. She promised to put Marco on the waiting list, adding with a sad smile that it was only fair to give him the opportunity considering he’d been fighting it for so long. Marco couldn’t feel even a glimmer of hope at the news. The four years hadn’t been a battle. It had been a retreat, a slow, humbling retreat that left Marco surrounded at all sides. Now he had the sword pointed at his throat, it was so tempting to just fall onto it.

There was a slight rise in mood when she mentioned that his other count had come back far lower than it was meant to. This was unusual, but not unheard of, and Petra told him to take comfort in that. Marco couldn’t bring himself to.

The conclusion drawn was that she would get the stronger pill for him, the one that sounded as though it was going to pummel his stomach to kingdom come, take him off the prescription for the cocktail and put him on the waiting list for the new, shiny drug that was supposedly meant to cure all ills. Marco had to sign a few forms, do a few more weigh-ins to check his body mass was still stable, and take the first pill before he left the hospital. He choked on it halfway down, and amid Mikasa massaging circles into his back and Petra thrusting a glass of water into his hand, he felt a little comforted. Just a little.

Despite this, Marco left the hospital a broken man. Mikasa hadn’t let go of his hand, refusing to let him do anything on his own once the result had come through, and Marco was somewhat grateful. Petra followed them out, ignoring the incredulous stares of the orderlies as she took Marco’s hand and squeezed it. “I had to fight to be your consultant, you know,” she said. “I had to promise I wouldn’t let the past infringe on my professional life. But… Thomas would have graduated with me, and… I think he would be ten times the doctor I am.” Her voice sounded more like hers, warm to match her eyes. “He’d tell you to not give up. I’m sure of it.” Marco wanted to tell her that Thomas had once said the exact opposite as he broke down in tears in their shower. He thought it was best he didn’t. She gave him one last squeeze, one last empty promise to meet up soon that they both knew would never happen, and she was gone back into the world of white coats and chemicals. Marco didn’t watch her go.

Once he and Mikasa stepped outside and the cold wind hit them, he turned to her. Finally, he looked at her face. There was no chainmail now, no mask to hide her honesty. Mikasa hadn’t ever looked this scared before. _Scared for **me**_ , Marco reminded himself. She looked ghostly, stood there in the wind with her black hair whipping her face. He let out a shaky breath, but Mikasa got there first.

“We’ll get through it.”

There was nothing tentative in her voice. It was a statement, pure and simple, and as Marco watched her, she nodded. “We’ll get through it. I promise. We always do.”

Marco sighed. “I’m not sure how long ‘always’ is going to hold out.”

“It’ll hold out until you tell it to.” Mikasa squeezed his hand. “We will do this, Marco. I’m with you every step of the way, and… I don’t care if you don’t want me there.” She swallowed painfully, and when she glanced back up Marco saw tears in her eyes. “You are the only person I ever tried to love and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you give up now.”

Marco opened his mouth, but no words came out. What could he say? Nothing could match the honesty in Mikasa’s tears or the painful grip of her hand. Instead, he just wrapped her in a hug and brought his lips to her forehead, kissing her there lighter than a bird’s breath as he felt her shake in his arms.

“Marco, you don’t have to…”

“Sssh.”

He heard her voice crack, and he just held her. There was nothing else he could do. He held her, and kissed her forehead again, and rested his head against hers as they swayed in the hospital car park like it was normal. Marco remembered how he’d loved her once, and tightened his grip on her. He felt her tense, realised it was too much, and pulled away to look her over. She wasn’t trying to hide the tears that rolled down her face, but she wasn’t creased up under the sting of them either. It was almost like rain running down her cheeks, and even as she sniffed and pressed their heads together to remind herself that he wasn’t a ghost yet Marco smiled. Mikasa didn’t do affection with many people- he was one of the honoured few, and at that moment he was glad of it. “You’re right,” he said. “We will get through it. But… if you keep crying on me I really will think I’m dying.”

Mikasa sniffed again, gave him a whack on the arm, and muttered, “Bastard,” under her breath as she knocked her knuckles against the side of his head for good measure.

They stood that way for a moment, Mikasa’s hand straying across Marco’s face to keep his shakes in check, and Marco let that foreboding sensation bury itself back in his stomach. Take the pills. Stay alive. That was his aim now. There was no use worrying about it; that would be reserved for a more private time, where he could bundle himself under the covers and let the panic take him. He just had to remind himself that it could have been far worse- but that was hard when he had Mikasa crying for him. He closed his eyes, turned his face into the musk of her hair, and inhaled deeply. “I’m getting too old for this, ‘Casa,” he murmured.

Mikasa’s laugh was small, as sad as his had been. “So am I.”

Marco smiled a little more genuinely as he pulled away. Then, something caught his eye. From the corner of his vision, something had just moved. Marco turned- and saw someone watching them. His smile fell off his face. He saw the figure take another step forward, hands shoved deep in the pockets of a coat two sizes too big for him. He shuffled when he walked. Marco’s looming fear- the grey, dull animal that had crawled into the depths of his psyche- resurfaced. He didn’t have to see the face to know who it was. His gaze had traced the outline so many times it came as second nature now. He turned away from Mikasa, his breath a cloud in the chilling air.

“Jean.” It came out like a prayer, like a hope that he was mistaken.

The other man’s breath rose in the air above them too, entangling with Marco’s as he stepped, gingerly, into sight. Marco’s breath gained and left him all at once. Jean’s gaze was as cold as the afternoon surrounding them, though his brows were furrowed in more confusion than fury. The words first out of his mouth were simple, questioning, but holding the potential of an answer Marco didn’t want to give.

“What are you doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I LEFT IT ON A CLIFFHANGER SUE ME  
> Also from here on out the big questions are going to be answered, including the one that has plagued you all for so long, so please please could you remember to be aware of others and tag anything you post on tumblr regarding this as 'sfs spoilers' so people can blacklist? Thank you!


	19. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to come out. It was hard to get the feeling right, and the pacing right, and I wanted it to work for you guys...  
> I'm still not sure if it works. But here we go. I'm not gonna ramble in here because I think (read: hope) the chapter will speak for itself. All that I ask is that you please PLEASE tag your spoilers (on tumblr mine will be 'sfs spoilers' and 'sfs 19 spoilers' if you wanna match mine) and let people know you're blogging about this so they can mute you, because this is the BIG THING so spoilers for this will be horrific.  
> Anyway.  
> Here it is. En...joy...?
> 
> As always, my tumblr is here for you to yell incoherently at me: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

Staring at Jean was like looking back three years ago.

The confusion came first, the strange curled question that hung on lips until you were taken somewhere ‘quiet’, somewhere that no one could hear your reactions exploding out of your body. Thomas had locked the door of his dorm room when he told Marco. Thomas never locked doors. The sickening feeling came next, the kind that crept up when at a great height or dangling at the end of a drop, and continued to linger even as you listened. The last thing Marco recalled, oddly, was his hope. It was a frail, small thing that stuck around even when he’d heard all that was to be said, even when he knew that nothing could be done… because there was always a disbelief, too. You couldn’t believe, after everything, that _this_ was the thing that ruined you.

Jean was going through it all now, eyes narrowing as he looked between Marco and Mikasa, and Marco began to wonder if this was what Thomas felt like.

“ _What are you doing here?”_

Suddenly, all the feelings Marco thought he’d left behind the heavy duty doors of the hospital came sneaking back. It almost winded him in how quickly it returned, like a punch to the stomach. He opened his mouth a few times in an attempt to get _something_ out, but it wasn’t successful. “I…uh…” He cast a plaintive glance in Mikasa’s direction. The tears still trailed down her face and dripped onto the concrete, but it was as though she were in a silent film. The only noise that came from her was a quiet gasping that Marco realised, with dawning horror, was her attempt to stop herself from sobbing. Mikasa had been waiting for him to turn away before she let her emotion take control; now it stalled in the wake of Jean’s gaze. Her eyes were fixed on him, and they were full of pity. Marco bit his lip and turned back to Jean. “I… I just…”

He felt Mikasa’s fingers pick away at his, a silent plea only he knew. He refused her for a moment. Every touch felt foreign, muted somehow by Petra’s words floating around his head and seeping into his skin. When she persisted, he let her slip her hand into his and squeeze gently. It was as though she were trying to pass over some of her courage, knowing how badly his was floundering- but they both knew it wouldn’t work. Jean’s eyes were drawn down to the movement, and a dangerous look passed over him. Marco gulped. He couldn’t tell him yet - he would have to do it the coward’s way.

“What are _you_ doing here?” he asked Jean, as cowards often did.

Jean’s gaze flicked up to his, and the frown quickly turned into a glare. “Armin gave me a lift,” he said. “We went to your place, but then we saw you driving away.” Jean sucked in his bottom lip and shuffled his feet against the loose stones of the car park. He hadn’t even brushed his hair from the night before. It was still ruffled from the ghosts of Marco’s fingers.

“Where’s Claudine?”

“With Christa.” Jean’s eyes wandered back to Marco’s entangled hands. “What’s going on?”

Marco cringed. Was Jean really not going to let it go? “It’s… I’m… we’re….” He tried to get a coherent sentence, he really did, but fell short of a few syllables.

“We’re?” Jean parroted. There was an edge to his tone that Marco didn’t like the sound of. It made him shut his mouth with a snap.

“Really, Kirschtein?” Mikasa said, swiping at her eyes as she spoke. “Are you really going to go there?” Her tears were now fat blackened globules from the running eyeliner trickling down her face like an Impressionist painting. She gestured between herself and Marco with sharp, stabbing motions. “What the hell do you think this looks like?”

Jean scowled at her, but the strength to his glare soon failed under the watery look of loathing she shot him in retaliation. Still, his defence shot skywards under the ferocity. “Look, I don’t know you all that well,” he hissed. “Excuse me for thinking the fucking worst.”

“I don’t give a shit what you think about me. You should know _Marco_ by now, you… you…” Mikasa’s energy for argument failed her. Marco saw her sag, and she let her hand drop from his. He felt the space between them chill in the pick-up of wind. “You know what, I’m done. Whatever, Kirschtein. Marco, I’m taking your bike home. I think you need to talk, and I think you need to talk now.”

Marco hated how clipped her voice sounded as she took his helmet from him and strode over to Bertha, her head lowered and hand still swiping at the eyeliner tears. She was upset. She was really upset. He wanted to comfort her and tell her it would be okay, but he didn’t have the energy for it either. Besides, she had been there – she knew that there was no sugar-coating it. He watched her go with a gnawing in his stomach. _Tell me what to do,_ he wanted to plead. _Make it alright, make it better the way I do for you._ But Mikasa couldn’t help. This time, he was on his own.

He turned back to Jean at the sound of Bertha spluttering into life. With Mikasa gone, Jean had relaxed. The tension in his shoulders had disappeared, his metaphorical hackles sinking back down where they belonged, and he even dared a small smile. “Hey,” he said, and stepped forward.

Marco didn’t move.

“S-sorry about that. I didn’t mean to, I just… I get carried away. Guess I don’t have a leg to stand on, seeing as Hitch…” His voice trailed off. He reached out a hand and took Marco’s carefully, fingers smoothing over the roughened edges of Marco’s palm. “N-nevermind,” he decided, lacing their fingers together where they stood, “Doesn’t matter. I’ll apologise to Mikasa later. I was out of line.”

Marco rattled out a breath. “S’okay,” he said as he watched the way Jean’s hand fit against his, “we’re both feeling… not so great.”

Jean’s brow quirked, but he said nothing. He had already asked why he was there twice – he clearly figured that Marco would answer in his own time. Jean was remarkably patient that way. He swung their connected hands in the air like he’d done back at the restaurant, a child-like gesture that made Marco’s chest all the heavier, and said, “Armin only dropped me off, so I guess we’re stuck here. There any buses?”

Marco swallowed painfully. Preventing his throat from going dry was taking a lot more effort than usual. “No, we’ll… we’ll have to walk.”

Jean glanced down at their hands and back up to Marco. “Okay,” he said. “Where to?”

Marco’s heart juddered in his chest. He didn’t know where he wanted to go. Did he want to go home? Did he want to go back to Jean’s? Did he want to just walk until he forgot the feeling of his own feet on the ground and the beat in his chest? All sounded like viable options. Go here, go there. Agree. Disagree. Lie. Truth. Safe. Gamble. They were just words, as meaningful and meaningless as the air. All of these words swarming around him, and not one of them sounding like an answer. “Just… need to walk,” he answered, before he could say anything else.

“Okay,” Jean said again, short and simple.

So they walked. They came out of the hospital’s car park, along the side of the main road and back towards the heart of the city. Marco’s feet felt weighted down, but Jean’s hand in his made things a little more bearable. Unsaid words hung in the air above them and pressed in close when their feet stumbled. Neither of them spoke. Marco didn’t have the heart to, and he was sure Jean could sense the tension rolling off his shoulders like mist on tempestuous waves. When Marco felt the burn of Jean’s gaze and met it with as much indifference as he could manage, he saw that there was a child-like worry to it, like he had fallen over in the playground and neglected to tell Jean. That feeling of being worried about poked through the numbness, and Marco tried to speak normally. “S-sorry I didn’t wake you up,” he said. “I thought you’d want the sleep.”

Jean relaxed a little at his voice, however weak and shaky it sounded. “S’fine, I needed the sleep. I didn’t do much sleeping the night before, so.”

“How come?”

Jean gave an attempt at a careless shrug, but the way his brows creased when he looked away was enough to make Marco’s feeble pulse hiccough in his chest. “Was thinking about you too much,” he muttered, and Marco felt more hollow than ever.

Speaking normally was an odd feeling. Marco felt like he shouldn’t have been able to, that he was going to be completely grounded in the stark reality of a 210 count and an upped dosage. But he wasn’t. He could talk to Jean and not remember for a brief second. He could talk about his art and the newest book he was reading and how Claudine had been coping in the time spent away from him like that was the only thing he had to worry about. He could fool himself into thinking that was all there was – but then the black and white files and results would come back and smack him square in the middle of his stomach and leave him winded.

Jean spoke the most, though whether it was through a nervous tick Marco wasn’t sure, and he just let the conversation flit past him like a flock of birds. He found himself becoming fascinated with the way words formed in Jean’s mouth, and went past the point of listening. He became conscious of his own lips, the same ones that smoothed over Jean’s and brought them up plump and reddened hours before. Those hours felt precious now, tiny snippets of moments that needed to be caught in a book and ferreted away. If Jean noticed Marco’s scrutiny, he didn’t mention it.

By the time they reached the centre of Trost, the day was dimming. The already grey afternoon was darkening still with a threat of bruised clouds overhead, and there was a sharp chill that meant that the freshness of spring hadn’t quite died away for the upcoming summer. Jean’s coat did a good job of keeping him warm- Marco, meanwhile, was sweating. He tried to kid himself that it was the strenuous exercise, but he knew better. Jean stopped under a streetlight that had come on prematurely, tricked by the dampening sky, and Marco stopped too. Jean gulped back a lump in his throat. “Marco…” he began.

Marco’s lungs suddenly felt smaller. “Mm?”

Jean used his free hand to rub the back of his neck, eyes on the road ahead. “Do you ever feel alone?” he asked.

Marco paused. He frowned. “It depends what you mean.”

Jean seemed to consider this. “Like… it’s difficult to explain, but… you just feel isolated. Cut off. From the people you know, I mean.”

_Yes_ , Marco wanted to say, _but not for the reasons you’re sure to be thinking about._ “I guess I do,” he said. “After Thomas died –” here his voice stumbled, “ – I didn’t feel like anyone could reach me. I sort of felt… adrift. I don’t know if that’s the same as being alone.”

“Being alone and feeling alone are two different things,” Jean replied, almost immediately. “I’ve known both enough to know. But…” His ears tinged pink as he stood there, framed in the light of a tricked streetlamp, “…I don’t feel so alone when I’m with you. Fucking sappy as shit, right? But it’s true. I don’t… I don’t _ever_ feel alone when you’re around. Guess you’re just the type who brings rooms to life.”

This wasn’t fair. Marco smiled and squeezed his hand, willing some of his warmth to slide onto Jean’s palm and keep it above freezing. He wanted to cry. He couldn’t cry. Not right now. He had to talk. “Jean-”

“Ugh. Sorry. I know, it sounds a bit creepy.”

“It’s not creepy at all.”

“But I really do like having you around. I just… wish it was more often.”

“You could see me every day if you wanted.”

Jean chewed his lip and gave him a look. Marco felt a shock of realisation rush through him. _Oh._

“Think about it. You don’t have to answer right away,” Jean said. “Shit, I know we’ve not been… I’m not the best… anyway. Offer’s there. Bed’s there. If you want it.”

Marco gulped back the lump in his throat and leaned down to brush his lips against the edge of Jean’s brow. “Of course I want it,” he said, the fear beginning to flicker into life once again, “but… Jean, you don’t know that much about me.”

Jean snorted. “What, you really _are_ some kind of murderer?”

“N-not like that, no…” Marco’s free hand brushed his pocket where the pills cruelly sat. “C-can we walk a little further?”

Jean blinked. “Uh, sure, okay.”

So they walked on.

* * *

Marco didn’t know why he decided to go there, of all places. It was a return, he supposed – a return to the very beginning, the day they’d met. He guessed there was some part of him that liked circuits; he worked constantly at mending circuits, getting them wired right so a clock hand would tick or music would start to play. Fixing something meant taking it apart to start with, looking at every component, putting it back together the way it should be. But this wasn’t a simple circuitry; this was one with many breakable parts, some already broken or cracked or lost along the way, and Marco had no idea if it was all going to fit back together again once taken apart.

The riverside wasn’t dark enough to bring out the more colourful versions of the city. The bridge loomed out of the mist like a Reaper’s scythe, cutting through the grey in a sweeping arch. It seemed to mock Marco as he reached it, daring him to dive off again and into the inky depths below. The river curved quietly under their feet, its direction steep and depth undoubtedly swollen with rainwater. That was the reason Marco had jumped in the first place; no one realised quite how deep it could get in the river. If left to the rescue teams, he wasn’t sure Jean would be running his hands over the railing now, the same railing his feet had stood on all those months ago. Marco shuddered at the thought, and once he started shaking he couldn’t find it in himself to stop. Did Jean think about it sometimes? How close he’d gotten to that infinite dark he read about in his books and painted in his art? Jean’s hand slipped from his. Marco’s hands had gotten clammy with sweat.

“Sorry,” he said, at the same moment Jean said, “Marco.”

He shook himself. “Yes?”

Jean was staring at the railing, his nails scratching at the flaking paint on the metal. It fell away like snow, fluttering to the walkway in flakes of black and fake bronze. Underneath, there was just another scrappy colour. Jean’s brows were furrowed as he scratched, the concentration making his eyes brighter somehow. His cheeks turned pinker the longer Marco stared, until he drew in a breath through his nose. “You can’t save everyone. You know that, don’t you?”

Marco stared at him, wrong-footed. “What do you-”

“You’re thinking too much. You only think too much when you’re worrying about someone.” Jean slumped against the bridge, arms folded atop the highest railing rung. Marco couldn’t remember where Jean had been stood when he fell off, but he had a feeling it was somewhere close. “I mean, it’s none of my business, but...” Jean’s eyes flicked up to meet his, the amber constricting around his pupil for a moment as his focus changed. “Being that person, caring so much, doesn’t it burn you up inside?”

_Like a supernova_ , Marco wanted to tell him. _Like a fucking supernova._

The scratching of Jean’s nails on the bridge metal stopped his thoughts from straying too far away, however, and only when he was given a questioning stare did he realise that Jean was actually waiting for an answer. “It hurts,” he said finally, stepping closer to the edge to lean on the railing. “It… it really hurts.”

“Is it worth it?”

Marco glanced up at Jean. He found his mind drifting back to six months ago, when he’d been on this selfsame bridge trying to coerce the boy beside him not to jump. Jean had been so angry then; Marco had thought he was nothing but fire and rage and little in between. What he’d found was broken, unsure, yet withstanding all at the same time.

_You’re like a River boy._

Marco clenched his jaw and dropped his head onto his folded arms. “Always,” he said.

There was silence for a while, a silence Marco was thankful for. It helped him assemble his thoughts, bring them together and force them into words and shapes he knew. The river lapped quietly against the old mooring steps like an old cat, serene in the mist, and Marco wondered how on earth the world could be so peaceful when there was a war going on inside him.

“Funny,” Jean muttered a beat later, dropping his chin onto his arms and peering at him intently. “I’d say it was killing you.”

Marco almost bit through his lip. The way his stomach dropped was like it would have if he’d taken a curve too tight on Bertha, or seen a person crying in the street. It was a plummeting, awful drop, with no chance of a foothold. He sucked in a sharp breath and clenched his fists around the railing, reminding himself that he could stop it, he wouldn’t fall forever, it would stop soon.

_I’m not dying, I’m not dying, I’m not dying._

Repeating the mantra over and over in his head made no difference; it simply let the words fade until they lost their meaning. All he could think of was the way Thomas had breathed sobs into his skin when he’d told him, and how his tears had seemed to prickle Marco’s skin with the realisation that he wouldn’t be spending his life holding the person him the way he thought he would. The thought that he could be in Thomas’s position made his head spin.

He hung his head against the rails and relished the feel of the cold metal. The bite of the cold made him certain he was still alive. He pressed his head closer, chasing that chill until he was chilled along with it and his knuckles blanched with the strain of clinging on. A hand appeared on his back, rubbing circles in a quiet and unsure but nonetheless soothing way, and Marco shuddered still. “Marco.” Jean’s voice nudged past his racing thoughts and settled in his mind, soft and nervous. “It’s alright.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s not alright.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, no…”

“Ssssh. Breathe. C’mon.”

Marco closed his eyes and let Jean rub his back, let him talk in a hushed tone. Jean didn’t do comforting. He’d admitted that once, and told Marco that he’d try his best but not to expect much from him. Jean, the terrible comforter. Jean, the awkward loser. But now he was touching Marco with a tenderness he didn’t use for many other people – if he’d ever used it at all. There was a comfort that wasn’t there before, like some of his edges had been smoothed over, and a flicker of confusion crossed Marco’s mind. Then he remembered. He remembered the way he held Jean close and toyed with his hair when he was nervous, or ran his hands down his back and whispered that everything would be fine. Jean had felt out every gesture, watched every smile, filing it away for future reference…

“Is any of this helping?” Jean asked. “M’trying my best here.” There was even a hint of a joke in his voice, the same lightness Marco used when he was trying to drag Eren out of a particularly black mood.

He moved his head from the rail and let it rest on the side of Jean’s arm. He shuddered out a breath. “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

Jean nodded, the smile fading from his face. “Yes, I do.”

Marco shut his eyes even tighter, his shoulders trembling with the effort. The way Jean was holding him, it had to be okay. That dark fear was being pushed back by the tender way Jean was reaching up to play with the strands of hair at the back of his neck, or how he leant in a little closer and dared to land a small kiss on his cheek despite the people walking by. Marco could feel the net being built around them as they stood there on the bridge, and he wondered if it was made from the same material as the one he had to build around Thomas.

He bit his lip again, and opened up a cut from before. He had to say it. He had to get the words out. It would be okay. Jean said it would be. He drew in a breath, steeled himself and-

“This is what I’m talking about. She should know fucking better, making you like this.”

Marco’s eyes snapped open. “Wh-what?” he said, pulling away from Jean’s embrace.

Jean stared at him, his eyes flickering over every inch of his face like he was trying to work something out. “Mikasa,” he said, eventually. “She’s known you long enough – should’ve known you’d feel like this.”

Marco’s whole little safety net he’d crafted for himself fell through. “Mikasa?” he asked numbly.

Yes. Mikasa. Of course that was what Jean assumed.

He was being looked at with an expression that was tragically earnest, like Jean was expecting Marco to agree with him. Marco pulled back, moved away from the gentle touches and secondhand comforts. Even now, Jean still thought he was invincible. He was so convinced that Marco was this unstoppable force of nature that overcame everything and came out on the other side a better person. To him, Marco was the strong one of them all, the rock, the stability point. Marco was the control in the little circuit of theirs, the sun in the little solar system- but even stars got sick.

Marco shuffled away and stared out across the river, frowning as the irritation took over the initial shock. Jean was such a cynical, realistic person – what had changed? Why on earth was he suddenly this person who wanted to give hope a chance, instead of letting it fester in the underbelly of his own fear? What had happened, what had _possibly_ occurred, to give Jean such an unshakeable faith in him? When Marco looked at him, and really looked, he knew why.

Jean was staring at him the way he stared at the stars.

He wetted his lips, and hoped his voice wouldn’t shake the way his body was. “Jean, it’s not about her,” he said.

Jean frowned. “What, really? Then why? Thought she looked a bit peaky myse-”

“It’s me.” His chest hiccoughed as the admission came out tripping over itself. “I-it’s… it’s me, Jean. She came with me.”

The lights on the bridge flickered around them, waking up in the mist like drowsy fireflies. The world continued on without them; the traffic’s roar, the clacks of thousands of heels and office shoes heading home… none of them stopped. Marco was never one to hate long moments. City life had a desperate speed to it that meant there were no chances to sit and dwell on the poignancy of anything. Marco always waited for those kinds of moments, savoured them even; days where time seemed stretched to its edges, reducing the slightest seconds to complete hours were something he craved. But not now. Now, he wanted nothing more than to be in time with them again. Jean’s gaze and his own black fear stopped all that. He felt sick.

Jean’s attempt at humour had lost its footing completely now, and fallen from his face to lay twitching at his feet. He blinked once. Twice. Then his eyes narrowed. “You?” he repeated. His voice was smaller than before.

Marco nodded. “Yeah. Me.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Why the fuck were you going to a hospital? If you felt shitty I could’ve taken a look at you.”

Marco bit his lip and shook his head wordlessly. He turned his back on the river and tried to remember the right way to breathe. It was all so easy when he was the one promising someone that things would work out, teaching them how to count their breaths and regulate it properly so it calmed their feverish hearts – but suddenly, his body was second guessing all he’d been taught.  He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, counting the seconds in his head until he had to release them.

“I’m not very well, Jean,” he said on the exhale. Admitting it brought the familiar prickle at the back of his eyes, and he blinked in order to fend off the tears threatening to gather. He wasn’t sure what they were tears of – relief? Realisation? Grief? It scarcely mattered. There was no putting a name to the weight in his stomach – anything would pale in comparison.

“What do you mean, you’re not well? You seemed fine yesterday.” Jean stepped closer, ignoring the way Marco froze as he moved, and laid a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up a little, but no more than usual. You’ve always had a high temperature.”

Marco gave a tearful chuckle despite himself. “But I’m not meant to.”

“What are you saying?” Jean persisted. “Do you have the flu or-?”

“No, not the flu.” Marco paused, swiped at his eyes, and carried on. “I’ve not been very well for a… for a long time.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed still further. “A long time,” he parroted back. “A long ti- how long?”

Marco let out a shuddering sigh that broke at the edges. “Too long,” he replied. Far, far too long. He’d spent too many days wondering if he would sleep through the night, too many phone ins to Marlow explaining that it was ‘just another stomach bug again’ as he lay on the floor of his bathroom trying to stop the walls from spinning.

Too many pills.

Too many fucking pills.

He could feel them pressing into his leg, mocking him in their little plastic pot. He took them out before he could think about it, turning the bottle over and over to hear them clatter merrily together like parts of a rainmaker. He could sense Jean watching him, staring at the pill bottle just as intently as he was.

“Marco?” The way Jean said his name made Marco flinch. It was small, timid, questioning. It didn’t sound like Jean.

In fact, Marco realised, Jean sounded the way he had when Thomas had come home the night of his diagnosis. It had been summer then, so the air was thick and humid. Thomas had made Marco sit down. That was when he’d known something terrible had happened. Marco wouldn’t make Jean sit down. He didn’t deserve to be sat for.

Marco swallowed painfully, his grip on the pill bottle starting to loosen. He remembered that sick feeling rising up in the pit of his stomach, eclipsing all the hope he’d forced there until there was nothing but a black hole in its place. Jean’s eyes narrowed as he thought and his face slowly lost its colour like it was being squeezed out of him. His eyes were fixed on the pills Marco had rolling about in his hand, staring at them like they were a death sentence all their own. When his eyes came up to meet Marco’s, it was the most exposed Marco had ever seen him.

“Marco, please tell me what’s going on. This is… you’re fucking scaring me, come on.”

Marco stared blankly at the pill pot, rolling the bottle between his fingers just to hear the clattering. He wanted everything to just stop; the noise of the city, the wind, the lights, even his breath. He wanted it all to just stop, so he wouldn’t have to say it again. When he drew a breath, it cracked and splintered as it went.

“I’m HIV positive, Jean.”

Silence.

It was strange how things seemed muted when moments like these happened. It was the silence of a hospital room, the silence of cries that were held back for the benefit of others, the silence of frowning doctors and clinical smells and IV drips. Marco had taken his fill of silence, and hadn’t ever wanted to experience it again. But here it came again, smacking him square in the chest with three years’ worth of fear and guilt. He just wanted to break the silence, to fill it in and shake it loose, but he was as helpless and silent as the doctors, the drips, the rooms.

For a brief snippet of time, nothing happened. There was no terrible emotional pain, no sudden reaction from Jean, nothing at all. Marco was afraid that maybe the world had heeded his prayer and stopped, but at the wrong moment. But then he saw Jean’s face. He saw the confusion. He saw the _pain._ He saw himself, three years ago, hoping to God that he’d misheard Thomas. He heard the way Jean’s voice cracked just as badly as his own.

“Wh-what?”

The question shattered like glass around them both. Jean blinked a few times, then shook his head, stumbling away from Marco like he was suddenly too hot to touch. Marco could see the words sinking in, and the denial Jean was trying to throw up around him. “No,” he blurted out.

Marco tasted blood on his tongue again. “Jean…” he tried.

Jean shook his head again, child-like and stubborn. “No, Marco no. No no no no no.” He turned on his heel, spinning as he ran his free hand through his hair to make it stick up on end. Marco could watch the reactions flit through him like chapters of a book, developing more and more as they got close to the end. The end was what Marco was afraid of. “That’s… that’s not funny,” Jean mumbled as he spun, “Not fucking funny at all…”

Marco tried his best to keep his voice even, but his was more broken than Jean’s. “I know it’s not, I know…” He took a step forward even though he knew it was too soon.

Jean recoiled, still shaking his head. He started to pace, a jerky, practiced movement that only allowed a few feet of space in which to do it. “You can’t joke about that fucking shit, Marco…”

“I’m not. Jean, I’m not.”

“Yes you are!” Jean snarled suddenly, turning on him with a blazing expression and clenched fists. “You have to be!”

Marco backed away, pressing his back into the railings of the bridge at the force of Jean’s anger. It was like a physical thing, this anger, spiked and sharp and working its way slowly into his chest. “J-Jean, I wish I was kidding. I wish I was, honestly.” The salt from his tears were filling the cracks in his lips, drying them up still more as he tried to fumble through words that seemed so useless now. He instead looked to the pot in his hand, and gave it over to Jean. “Just… look at them. L-look at the pills, Jean, and tell me I’m lying.”

Jean took it. He didn’t even look at them. “I don’t want to,” he mumbled, his voice breaking halfway through. “J-just… tell me you’re lying. Tell me you’re fucking _lying_.”

Marco wanted to lie. He wanted to admit that it was a horrible joke, link arms with him and carry on walking. But his lies were dying one by one, falling like moths from the sky. He’d come this far. He could push through the other side. “Look at them,” he urged, even though the sound came out more like a sob, “P-please, just… l-look at them. You weren’t taught much, but you’ll know immunity builders when you see th-”

“I don’t want to look at the fucking pills, Marco.” Jean was gripping the pill pot so tight Marco was afraid it would shatter in his hand. “I don’t want to look because I know Marco Bodt.” His voice was higher now, strained with the effort of keeping his emotion in check, but as Marco watched he saw it begin to break the bank, a trickle to a tsunami. “The Marco Bodt I know wouldn’t stand there and let me make a fucking fool of myself talking about the future when he knows he might not even be in it. The Marco Bodt I know wouldn’t make everyone believe that he’s okay, even when his best fucking friend gets diagnosed with it too. And the Marco Bodt that I know,” he said, stopping dead and pointing an accusing finger in Marco’s direction, “wouldn’t keep something … something like _that_ a fucking secret.”

Jean’s anger was working its way between Marco’s ribs. He could feel it, sharp and barbed, and all he could do was shudder and break and cry. He couldn’t do anything else. Everything rational was numb to the panic, the fear and the pulsing, contaminated blood in his veins. He couldn’t explain himself – how could he? The one thing he continually tried to fight against was winning. He didn’t want to fight anymore. He wheezed out a breath and shut his eyes in an attempt to shut out the accusation burning in Jean’s eyes. “You can say it, you know,” he managed to say, his mouth dry as a desert. “You can say HIV. It’s not some sort of bad word.”

“Yes it fucking is!” Jean shot back. “That word can kill people, Marco, don’t you get that?!”

Marco bit his lip hard, the flesh already pink and tender. Of course he knew. “I wanted to tell you,” he whispered, “but-”

“But what?!” Jean snapped. Marco flinched, even with his eyes shut. “What could have stopped you? You know mostly everything about my fucked up life. You know about Claudine, Hitch, the fact I’m scared of the fucking outdoors – when the fuck were you planning on telling me this?”

“I would have,” Marco said, though he heard how weak it sounded. “I w-would have, Jean, I swear, I just thought-”

“I don’t give a fuck what you thought!” Jean exploded. “You _didn’t_ think, that’s the point! Were you going to tell me tomorrow? When we started dating properly? When things got particularly heated one night and we reached for the condoms, _when?”_ Jean’s voice cracked on the last demand, his chest heaving with the effort and his eyes swimming. Marco just shuddered under the weight of his panicked sobs, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep himself centred.

Jean didn’t pay attention to that. He was still too angry, the temper still at boiling point. The next few questions came out like venom, spitting and cold.

“Would you have even had the fucking decency to tell me if I hadn’t seen you at the hospital?” Jean took a step forward. “Huh? Would you? Or would you just let me catch it off you and play it off as a bit of bad luck?”

“No!” Marco looked up at him through his tears, tried to see a flicker of sympathy. He couldn’t see a shred of it. He saw nothing but fury. He shrank away, back towards the other end of the bridge, his fever breaking out in ripples across his already wrecked body. He had done what Mikasa asked him to do – what she had been asking him to do for years.

He had broken the circuit, and now he wasn’t sure if it would be pieced back together again.

And he was sorry. He was so, so sorry.

“It was h-hard,” he mumbled, his words quiet and clumsy, “a-and it wasn’t meant to happen, me and… a-and you. I told myself I wouldn’t do it, w-wouldn’t get mixed up in it again because it hurt too m-much, but then you came along and I just c-couldn’t…” He almost keeled over with the weight of what he wanted to say. “I couldn’t pretend that I d-didn’t care about you. It wasn’t supposed to h-happen, I promise, I didn’t mean for it to get this deep…”

“So I’m a mistake?” Jean’s words were like ice now, the heat so intense it subverted itself. “Is that it?”

Marco wheezed out a pitiful breath and shook his head, coughing through the tears. He lifted his head and saw only him, stood there with the lights of the city on his skin and the universe in his eyes. He smiled weakly. “You’re the best mistake I ever made.”

Jean looked like he wanted to hit him. Marco wouldn’t have blamed him. He wouldn’t have even protected himself; he would have stood there and taken it, no matter how many bruises and broken bones he’d sustain. He deserved it. He knew that. Mikasa’s warnings burned in the back of his mind, reminding him that nothing lasted forever and everything would have to come out eventually. But oh, how he hated having to live through it.

The ice in Jean’s voice had clearly stuck his feet to the ground; all he seemed to do was clench and unclench his jaw and fix Marco with the same feral fury he’d used on him with when they had first met. But then he tore his gaze away and looked to the river, following its winding path with his eyes as he washed a hand over his jaw, his chin, his lips. When he turned back, he’d managed to cut open his lip with his teeth, the wound bleeding clean and angry.

“Will it kill you?” Jean asked. The question was frail, Jean’s eyes cast down to the space between them. “The HIV, is it… is it bad, is it going to kill you?”

Marco squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe. _No more lies_ , he reminded himself. _You have to be honest, even if it hurts_. “I don’t know,” he said. Jean made a desperate noise in the back of his throat that was something akin to a sob, and Marco gave a hiccoughing laugh at how easy it had been to say it. “I d-don’t… I’m on the brink. It could turn into-”

“Don’t fucking say it,” Jean hissed. “I changed my mind, I don’t- I can’t-”

“Just _let_ me fucking say it, Jean.” Marco knew he had to. The bottle was already uncorked; it was better to spill the truth now than let it mature for longer. “My, uh, CD4 count – d-do you know what that is? – w-well it’s down to… to 210, and… if it goes much further…”

“I told you, I don’t wanna hear this.”

“My v-viral load isn’t so bad, but it could be a fluke…”

“Marco, stop.” Jean was begging.

“The pills weren’t working, they never worked, they kept giving me s-side effects and I thought that was just how they w-worked but they were just letting it d-destroy me, Jean, from the inside out, like an intruder, like a f-fucking _thug_ inside my blood…”

“That’s enough!”

Marco jolted at how loud Jean had shouted. He was glad of the lack of people – any other day and they would have probably drawn a crowd. When he finally looked up, he saw that the tears had broken loose and were escaping down Jean’s cheeks, leaving salt trails in their wake. Before Marco could look away again, Jean spoke. “It’s not fair,” he whispered, savage to the putrid air around him. “This sort of shit, it’s not meant to happen to someone like _you_.” He sniffed loudly, and clenched his jaw to hide the sound of his sharp gasping breaths. “You should have fucking told me.” He glanced up, his glare diluted now in the wake of his tears. “I want to hate you, Marco,” he said. “I want to… I want to hate you so badly _…_ ”

Now was when Marco moved. He stepped away from the railing, his chest still heaving with quiet sobs. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, J-Jean, please don’t hate me.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“NO.” Jean’s eyes flashed as Marco got closer. Something glimmered there behind the anger, behind the disbelief, and soon his irises were threatening to swim in it. “Don’t touch me, I hate you, don’t touch me, don’t-”

Marco wrapped his arms around him, and they both broke apart.

This wasn’t like when they were looking through Thomas’s album. That was a quiet, pathetic kind of thing, a whimper that needed coddling and a hand that needed holding. They were in the midst of a tempest now, both of them holding tight onto the other and not daring to let go. Marco could hear Jean’s quiet hitching sobs in the lapel of his jacket, and that only sought to fuel his own tears. They held each other like they were trying to crush the fear away, erode it until it was nothing more than the flaking paint of the bridge they stood on. Neither wanted to think or hear anymore; but they knew they had no choice.

So they just cried.

Marco swayed them slowly, all attempt at comfort thick and fake on his tongue, and he was pretty sure he could feel Jean driving his fists into his chest as he sobbed. All he could say was, “I’m sorry.” All Jean could say was, “I hate you.”

When the cycle was broken and the sobs grew quieter, Marco heard Jean ask, muffled in the expanse of his coat, “It was Thomas, wasn’t it?”

Marco rested his head on Jean’s shoulder and let out a shaky breath. _Thomas. Thomas. It was always Thomas._ “We didn’t know he had it,” he mumbled into Jean’s coat. “We were just kids. We made stupid mistakes.”

Jean made a strangled noise and hit him again, but it was feeble and fell flat of doing any damage. “That doesn’t fucking matter,” he repeated. “Fucking idiots…”

Marco turned his face into the side of Jean’s neck but didn’t dare kiss it. He wasn’t sure what would be allowed now, what was off limits and what wasn’t. He searched for that paint-and-book scent he knew so well, but all he got was the fumes of the cars and the industrial stink of the swollen river. “We were in love, Jean. We thought we were untouchable.” He closed his eyes. “Love does funny things to you.”

Marco wasn’t sure why that, of all things, was what hardened Jean’s resolve. The moment the words left his mouth, the thread already wound so tight around them was snipped. Jean’s hands fell away from where they had rested after the last punch, his head jerking away from Marco’s shoulder like something had prodded him. Marco felt him slip away, his body swaying away from Marco’s like a rogue wave hitting another going in the opposite direction. He tried to grab hold, but Jean just pulled away harder. Marco’s quiet pleas came out in a jumble. “J-Jean, p-please, I’m s-sorry please don’t go, please…”

Jean was shaking now, but Marco knew it wasn’t a scared sort of shake. The fists at his sides and the pinched way he was looking at him confirmed that. Suddenly, Jean wasn’t this broken person; he was made of stone, the same stone carved before Hitch’s party. Jean was throwing up every defence he had, and no amount of crying or pleading would be able to knock them down. After all, Jean had far too much practice.

“I know what love does,” he said, eyes on the floor in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Marco was certain he could feel the pain crackle across the lids like static before Jean opened them again. Marco wondered what Jean thought of him; this infected, damaged, once-strong person, huddled against the edge of the bridge begging for forgiveness. He hoped Jean could see the regret. He hoped he could see how pathetic he was. Maybe then he would realise that there was no such thing as a hero, no matter how hard he searched.

“I’m going home, Marco.” Jean’s eyes flashed as they caught his, still glassy with tears. “And this time, don’t try to help me.”

His words were dead. They had died halfway out his mouth, and now they littered the ground between them like gravestones.

Marco hung his head, shuddering with the force of another broken sob. Jean’s words felt final, like they were the last punches thrown in a fight. He wanted to beg, to plead, to let the last shards of dignity shatter at Jean’s feet – anything to stop him from looking at him like that. “Please…” he breathed. “Please, don’t go…”

Jean went.

Marco didn’t even see him go. One minute he was there, and then he was gone.

That was when the last part of him broke. He slipped down against the bridge and nearly collapsed, the weight of what he’d done finally taking its toll. Jean needed time; that was something Marco had to give him. He was angry, he was raw and hurting, and that was completely acceptable. He understood that.

_He wants to hate you._

He choked out another sob, his stomach giving a rather ill-timed spasm. He retched, but by some grace of higher power, nothing came out. He retched again. And again. His body continued to fight, his heart squeezing out every aching pulse, and he tried to get the world to focus. Nobody stopped. Nobody had, even when Jean was shouting and grabbing and leaving. Marco felt invisible, pressed in on all sides by the mist, and as he straightened up he looked around at his own artificial results room. It was just different kinds of chemicals, different kinds of noises. The feeling was the same.

He ran a hand over his face, willed himself to pick himself up off the floor and get home, and got to his feet. His legs shook, his chest ached, but he was upright.

There was always a point in superhero movies where the hero gets close to giving up. The villain is winning, the city is burning, the love interest is screaming for impossible rescue, and the hero has that moment of doubt, of insecurity, of failure. Marco used to love those parts; he used to strain forward in his seat to watch the hero’s thoughts laid bare, exposed to every human vulnerability imaginable before the magic weapons were found, the impossible plan hatched, and everything became okay again. Marco was no hero – he never thought otherwise – but he could feel that moment collide overhead like a rainstorm. He was always convinced, back then, that the hero would never figure out a way to return everything to normal. At that moment, with his body shaking and his immunity failing, Marco was sincerely thinking the same thing.

It took him a second more to notice his pill pot floating in a puddle just inches from where Jean had stood, the label’s ink dampening and spreading into small, curling tentacles on the plastic.

* * *

Marco didn’t remember the walk home. It was the sort of thing that blurred into the background, nothing mattering to him except the pump of blood in his veins and the aching pit carved out in his chest. He let his body move on autopilot, walking the familiar path to his apartment and stopping when necessary so he could try to wrangle the darker part of his brain into a corner. Being numb had its advantages; it meant that he could shove thoughts down into the pit of his boots and forget about them for a little while, his entire being so unequivocally _done_ with Being Marco Bodt that it just let him do it. But the tears kept falling, the sobs still echoed, the pain still throbbed like a second heartbeat under his skin, and all he was interested in was getting home.

The long staircases leading to his apartment looked like mountains as he entered the building. One last shred of stubbornness refused to take the lift, and he ended slumped against his door with his head pressed into the woodgrain, his hip aching from where he’d stumbled halfway up. His pulse roared in his ears as he stood there, stomach squeezing pitifully like it wanted to eject the pain out of him. He could hear voices behind the wood, muffled but there, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted them. He could walk away, he decided. He could walk out and stay in a hostel for a night, just to get away from the downturned mouths and ‘told you so’ eyes. Something inside him grew tighter and stronger. No. He wasn’t a coward. He had been enough of one throughout his life to warrant running away from the only living souls who would give a shit about him. So he stepped back, scrubbed a hand over his face, and unlocked the door with one last, tiny sob.

Mikasa looked up the moment the door opened with puffy eyes and shakily re-applied eyeliner. She was sat on the sofa, dragged to a position that faced the door directly, but she was soon on her feet and rushing over. “Marco,” she said, her voice breaking a little, “Marco, sweetheart, what happened?”

He sagged against her, letting himself fall into her arms with the whimper of a wounded animal. “He…He…H-He…” He buried his face in her shoulder, wheezed painfully, tried again. “He left. He left, and h-he… oh g-god…”

“Ssshhh,” she soothed, pressing a small kiss to the side of his head. Marco found himself relaxing, despite everything. They all seemed to think it was him that stood tall and strong and unyielding, but it was never him – not entirely. Mikasa was always stood beside him, ready to catch him if he fell a little too hard. Marco knew he was a lot of people’s safety blankets – but he would never have as brave a heart as the girl that held him now and spoke softly in his ear. “It’s a lot for him to take in,” she murmured, kissing his head again, “just give him some time.”

Marco propped his chin on her shoulder then, trying to stop his tears from staining her clothes too much. He remembered the way Jean had glared at him, feral and angry, and closed his eyes. “I don’t think he wants t-time.”

Mikasa didn’t answer. How could she? Marco knew it would be cruel to even assume that she could make this right. He sniffled and slowly threaded his arms around her, the way he had when they were teenagers and scared of everything. He had times where he couldn’t imagine being that same boy, the one who stood in front of Mikasa with hair cut short the way his mother liked it and large doe-eyed naivety hanging from him like an oversized coat. Moments like these, however, his weakest moments – he felt his younger self scrabbling to get out behind all the bravado and cheerless smiles.

He’d been shaped by Thomas’s diagnosis, been the one there for him when no one else was. He had gone to every appointment, comforted him, bathed him, fed him, done everything for him the way a nurse would – and Thomas hated every moment of it. Marco knew by the way Thomas glared at him with eyes diluted by pills and sickness and last testaments and snap that he didn’t need help, that he wanted Marco to live and not just _exist._ Existing meant staying with Thomas. Living would mean letting him go. Marco hadn’t ever felt that way. In his mind, there was never any other option – he would stay, he would help, he had to…

Some people weren’t strong enough to stay. Maybe Jean was one of those people.

“Come on,” Mikasa urged, leading him over to the sofa, “Sasha’s at Connie’s, so it’ll be quiet. I’m going to get you eating.”

“I don’t want to eat,” Marco sighed, pulling away and turning to the island.

Mikasa let him go, but he heard her shift behind him. “Starving yourself won’t help.”

“I know. I just… I c-can’t eat, I’ll just…” _I’ll just throw it back up again._ Marco gritted his teeth, swiping at his tears and willing himself to walk over to the sink for water. He could still taste blood in his mouth.

“H-have you… do you need to take a pill?” Mikasa asked.

He took a sip and nearly retched. He spat it back out into the sink, and recoiled at the pinkish brown tinge to the liquid. He swilled it down the drain, tried again, spat again. If only getting rid of everything else was so easy. Once any trace of blood was gone, he took an actual gulp and kept it down. “I hate them,” he muttered. The hand holding the glass shook so badly that he had to put it down. “I h-hate them, Mikasa, I don’t want to do this anym-more…”

“I know, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes again, braced himself against the top, and breathed out through his nose. That was right for a panic attack, wasn’t it? Or was it through the mouth? He couldn’t remember now – everything was far too scrambled. “I want to wake up,” he hissed, his voice more of a whisper than it had ever been.

Mikasa’s hand appeared on his back, moving along his spine in the simple comfort Jean had attempted. “You are awake,” she said, “and you’re fighting. That’s all you have to do, Marco, all you have to focus on for the next few weeks. You have to fight, and fight _hard_ , and you’ll be okay.”

“I’ve had enough of fighting.”

Mikasa’s hand stilled. “You don’t mean that.” Her words were as cold as the water he’d just drank. “You have people here. You have friends. You have a job. You have…”

“Maaaarco? Doth mine ears deceive me?”

Both of their heads snapped around to the hallway. Marco’s heart started racing all over again. Eren was stood in the doorway of the living area, hair flyaway and a yawn ripping loose from his lips. “What are you doing back here? Assumed you’d worked it out with Dickmancer, you staying away from here last night an’ all.” Eren’s short, sharp laugh died quickly as he took a proper look at him. His voice changed. “Marco?” It was sombre, more concerned, and Marco shrank back as Eren approached with a frown.

“D-don’t, I’m f-fine…” Marco began.

“He is not fine,” Mikasa interjected before there was any opportunity for lies.

“I can see that, idiot.” Eren was the only one able to talk to Mikasa like that, but even so Marco noticed the way her eyebrow twitched at the treatment. Eren stepped closer, his frown only growing sharper. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

Marco shuddered, shook his head like a child and stumbled backwards. “I c-can’t… you’ll h-hate me…”

Eren blinked. “What the fuck, why would I hate you?”

_Because of the lies. Because I didn’t tell you because I was just too scared. Because I was selfish._ Each answer jumped out at Marco like they were waiting to be picked for a team, but he ended up simply shaking his head and pressing himself back against the counter. “You just will,” he said. Here he was again. Backed into a corner by someone he cared about. The difference between Jean and Eren, though, was that Jean stayed back. Eren got into his space even more.

He kept coming, head cocked to one side like an inquisitive poodle and his swagger all but gone now. This wasn’t Eren Jaeger, scourge of Christian mothers everywhere and flirter extraordinaire. This was the Eren Jaeger who had stayed up with Marco weeks after Thomas died, who tried to be strong when all he felt was weak. It was the Eren that cried, bled, grieved; it was the side of him that was passed over and ignored, even by those who’d known him for years, and Marco wanted nothing more than to lie to this Eren to get the other one back. This one was dangerous.

“Marco, I couldn’t ever hate you,” Eren said.

And Marco knew he meant it.

He tried to speak, but choked on the words. He took another gulp of water and set the glass down hard, snapping his mouth tight like a trap. He shook his head, felt the tears coming and tried to bite down on his lip to stop them. They came anyway, flowing like rainwater, and Eren’s hands came up to frame his face. Marco flicked his eyes up and met the blue and gold, focusing on the way the light bounced off of them.

“Hey now,” Eren soothed, running his thumb across Marco’s cheeks, “steady it down. Stop hyperventilating like you’re about to pass out.” Marco swallowed dryly and tried to open his airways, to stop his lungs constricting on every panicked reminder, and nodded. The moment Eren Jaeger became the calm one was the time when he had truly hit rock bottom.

“I w-went to the hospital,” he said, in a jumble.

Eren’s lips pursed like he was trying to figure out a maths problem. “Why?”

Marco couldn’t tell him. He and Eren didn’t do words, not usually – not even when they were at university together, back when Eren was hooked on god knows what and all Marco could do was watch. So he didn’t talk. He didn’t ramble. He just took his pill pot out of his pocket and placed it on the kitchen counter beside them, the trembles in his hand threatening to knock it over as he drew away.

It didn’t take long. Eren glanced down at the pills, back to Marco, and that was it. Marco could see it, drowning in his blue eye and burning in his gold. Eren knew. His eyes went back to the pills, narrowing as he thought, and then back to Marco again. He did it at least three times, a slow flick up to Marco and an incredulous drag down that kept Marco rooted to the spot and reaching out for Mikasa’s hand. She was there, her hand cold and too small in his own but nonetheless there. Every time, Eren’s eyes grew wider. Every time, his breathing hitched just that little bit more. By the fourth and final glance, his chest was heaving like he was readying himself for a sprint.

“You?” he whispered. His voice didn’t crack the way Jean’s had – when he was splintering at his edges already, his voice didn’t need to quiver. Eren was used to hiding weakness.

Marco just lowered his eyes, trying to avoid the way Eren’s hard, penetrating stare that all at once stripped him down from everything he had built up since Thomas and exposed the little creature, curled up in his stomach, petrified. He had nothing left. He just let a small sob suck air from his lungs and hoped it would be over soon. Marco had seen Eren angry many times, after all. He knew how it went. Eren would throw things, scream and shout and cry until his lungs ached and his voice was hoarse. Nine times out of ten, he would need Marco or Mikasa there to stop him from doing anything stupid. Sometimes, he would do it anyway regardless of Marco or Mikasa being there.

Eren was an atom bomb at that moment, stood in the kitchen staring down at the pill pot identical to his own, and Marco was ready to get caught up in the blast.

What he didn’t expect was for Eren to exhale shakily and walk away. Marco let him go, leaving the pot on the side as he followed him, but a few steps behind. His hand fell from Mikasa’s, but she let it happen, retreating to the end of the kitchen to watch should she need to step in. Like a territorial cat she waited, silent and out of the picture. She knew she had no part to play in this. It was all down to Marco, and he knew it. But Eren was the main thing. He was the priority.

Eren walked to the nearest wall and sank against it, pressing his forehead into the plasterboard and just trying to breathe normally. Marco took a step closer, another sob wheedling pathetically through his lips. He hadn’t ever seen him like this in the five years he’d known him. It sent his pulse racing. “E-Eren…?”

“How long?”

Eren’s words weren’t steel, but they weren’t brimstone either. They were just… clinical. Emotionless. Dead.

Marco gulped. “S-since… since Thomas... near the end they asked me to get tested, and…” His tongue jammed itself to the side of his mouth. He couldn’t say anymore.

Eren gave a resigned sort of sigh, and slid his eyes shut. “Did he know?”

“Wh-”

“Thomas. Did he… did he know, did you tell him?” Eren looked back at him then, and Marco saw the water in his eyes.

Marco bit his lip. “How could I tell him?” he said, wiping the tears before they dripped off his chin. “He was dying, Eren. He didn’t have long left.”

“He asked you.” Eren’s eyes narrowed, causing Marco’s stomach to jolt, but all Eren did was glare. “He asked you if he’d given it to you, and you said no.” The eyes narrowed still further. “You _lied_ to him.”

Marco backed away from that glare, the fear in his chest faltering in time with his feet. “Would you have told him, if it were you?” he asked. Eren flinched like his words were darts. “I did it to protect him, Eren. He just wanted us safe, that’s all he ever wanted.” He let out a sigh, long and sad and so, so tired. “I’ve lied to a lot of people. He was just the start.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Eren’s gaze was no longer on him now, content to fix itself on a scuff in the flooring. “Weren’t you fucking terrified, seeing that happen to him and knowing that it could happen to you? Did you wake up in the night and try to scratch yourself raw like he did because he hated the way his body was betraying him?” Eren’s arms came up to wrap around himself, gripping tight as he began to shake like a timid dog. “Didn’t you feel so _fucking_ alone?” Marco tried to move towards him, but Eren recoiled, eyes shooting up wide and wild. “Don’t come near me,” he spat suddenly, in a voice that was distinctly more Eren-like than the rest, and Marco stayed put. “Don’t- don’t… not yet.”

Marco’s voice stumbled out without his permission. “Ere-”

“I was alone too,” Eren cut in. “When I found out, I mean. I went on my own, you know that?” Eren’s gaze was fierce, accusatory, and Marco knew he deserved it. “I felt like I had no one that would understand. They wouldn’t know what it was like to fuck up so bad that your own body starts turning on you. I was angry and sick and fucking horrified at what I was, and I wanted to keep everyone away, just in case they caught it from sharing my air.” Eren looked back at him now, eyes flashing. “But… then there was you.” He shook his head, a dead chuckle rising from his lips. “You just turned up like you always do, like you always fucking have, and… I didn’t realise before, but I was fucking waiting for you to come find me.” He rubbed his eyes, sniffling a little as he did so. “I was waiting for superman, and you showed up.”

Marco’s feet itched with the desperation to go over to Eren, to sweep him up against his chest and let him cry like he had before on so many occasions, but Eren had that skittish look about him that suggested a cornered animal and Marco knew better than to get too close. He didn’t know what to do. Eren was angry, sure, upset most definitely, but it was a muted, softer kind of hurt. “Eren, I should have told you then,” he said, his breath coming out in gasps. “Please believe me when I say I wanted to, I really wanted to, but… but I wasn’t strong enough.”

Eren sighed. “Oh, really?” he asked. “You weren’t strong enough? You’ve battled this shit for three years, and you think you’re not strong? You’re a joke.” As if to iterate this, he gave out a short, sharp laugh. It was too shrill to be genuine, and it made Marco back off a little. He didn’t know what to do. If Eren exploded, if he threw Marco against the counter and left poisonous insults ringing in his ears, Marco would know what to do. But this? This was different, and that scared him.

“Of course you’re fucking strong, Marco,” Eren crowed suddenly, breaking through the laughter like a drunk. “You just didn’t wanna admit what you’ve got. There’s a difference.”

Marco blanched. “That’s not…”

“True?” Eren finished for him. “Of course it’s true! I mean, I don’t _blame_ you. You told me all this shit about it ‘just being a label’ and it ‘doesn’t mean anything’, but… it does, doesn’t it?” He laughed again, bitterly. “If there wasn’t something scary about HIV and AIDS, you wouldn’t have cared if people knew.”

Marco’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t argue with that. No matter what he said, the evidence was right in front of Eren. It was written in Marco’s tears, the shakes, the sweat. “I never said being HIV positive isn’t scary,” he said, “b-but it’s how we live with it that makes us brave.”

“Yeah?” Eren pushed off the wall and moved towards him. For a brief moment, Marco thought that Eren was going to do exactly what he’d predicted. He braced for impact – but Eren stopped an inch from him, eyes directed to his throat like a threat. “Then what does that make you?” he hissed, the words barely loud enough to hear.

Marco just lowered his head. The tears just kept falling now, scorching his already water-scarred face, and he didn’t care about the way it tingled and irritated his skin. Eren moved past him, the stuffy smell of secondhand clothes and Marco’s apartment leaving with him, and Marco let him go. Only when he heard the door open and close did he turn around.

Mikasa glanced at him, her knuckles white on the edge of the kitchen top she was gripping. He’d forgotten she was there, standing there like a ghost in the centre of a battlefield.  Her eyes darted from him to the door like she was trying to make up her mind about something. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “Marco, you know I have to go after him,” she said. Her voice was strained, tinny like a bell in the wake of a tunnel.

Marco nodded, blinking away the tears that lingered in his eyes like fattened dewdrops. They itched. “I know,” he said. “Go on.”

Mikasa hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go.”

Mikasa didn’t need telling twice. She snatched Marco’s keys from the side and ran out after Eren, slamming the door shut so hard it rattled on its hinge.

And Marco was alone.

His circuit was broken in two places, and he wasn’t sure if he had the ability, or the will, to fix either break.

* * *

Marco’s sobs came in waves. They would leave in a whisper and lull him into a false sense of security before crashing back over him and opening the floodgates once more. But even they had to stop sometime, and after half an hour of being alone, Marco found he couldn’t cry anymore. It was like his body had given up trying to make him feel better, and simply left him a husk. The first time he’d felt this way, he’d promised himself that he would never allow himself to get broken down again. But, as Eren had rightfully established, he was too good a liar to keep that promise.

He couldn’t help checking his phone in the feeble hope that someone, _anyone_ , would call, but every time he looked at it and saw the emptiness of his screen staring back at him it just made him feel worse. He ended up throwing the phone to the other side of the sofa with a watery huff and curling up on his end. He was on his own again. He’d lost his family again. He’d walked away from his first one – now this one was walking away from him. It would only be a matter of time before Sasha found out, before Connie and Ymir and Armin and Christa… and then what would happen? What would happen to the way they saw him?

He lifted his head up from his knees and looked to the windows, the view obscured by grime and dust. There was nothing defined in them; everything was just shades or blocks of colour, moving around aimlessly as the world spun on its axis. He went to them, just to press a hand to the glass and feel the cool condensation on his skin. His fingers creased at the touch, and he brushed some of the grime clear. Eren was somewhere on those streets, cowering around one of those corners, and he felt sick to the teeth to know that it was because of him. He couldn’t stop caring, even now. It was like breathing to him; stop caring and he would cease to exist. That was what he was good for, after all. That’s what he had to prove to everyone. If he showed them how much he cared, maybe he would stop feeling as though he’d failed. Maybe he could let it go.

After an hour, he took a moth-eaten blanket from his room and spread it across the sofa. If Eren was truly on a rampage somewhere, it was going to be a long night. He hoped Mikasa had caught up to him; at least then he stood a chance of avoiding arrest. He winced at the thought and pulled the blanket tighter around him. The holes let in the air and made him shiver, but he had this overwhelming sense of deserving it. So he just buried down into the fabric of the sofa, attempted warm thoughts, and waited.

The hole in his chest, it turned out, didn’t stop him from sleeping. Marco opened his eyes to find himself cloaked in darkness, the blanket pooling around his waist and his body bared to the elements. Through the sleepy fog, Marco made out the shape of a suspiciously white furry lump perched on his hip. “Mmph, Bats?” he asked quietly, reaching a hand down to stroke the offending animal’s head. He got a surprised mewl in response, and a pair of eyes staring accusingly up at him from their perch. “Don’t you be angry at me too,” he whispered, and reached out a finger to tickle under his cat’s chin. Batman’s judgement faded with the attention, and his eyes narrowed into contented slits as he enjoyed the fuss. When Marco’s hand fell away he shuffled upwards, nuzzling his face into Marco’s shirt and letting out a low purr as he did so. Marco smiled and made soft kissing noises at his cat, Batman’s purring only increasing in volume. That was when he felt something shift and sigh behind him.

All fragments of sleep fled.

He didn’t want to hope; hope, after all, was what had got him into this mess in the first place. The tendrils of dreams were still in reach, still dancing at the corners of his vision. There was a chance that the sofa and the cat was all there was - but the heat felt too real to be imagined. Sure enough, there was another shuffle at his back, a little breath that tickled the hairs on his neck, and the warm press of a hand on his waist made him sure. The motion of turning over unseated Batman, who landed on the floor with an indignant grunt and stalked away, but Marco didn’t pay attention to that. He was too busy staring down at Eren, led as straight and thin as a reed in a lake to keep them from falling off the sofa together. He let out a soft, incredulous laugh that whispered into every crevice of the apartment.

When Thomas died, Eren went missing. He disappeared off the face of the planet like he’d never existed in the first place. Nobody could track him down. Everyone was terrified he’d done something stupid. Marco had never seen Mikasa so frantic. Eren turned up at a bus station four days later, bleeding and bruised and on the worst comedown he’d ever experienced. He’d been in hospital for a week. Marco had never forgiven him for that, for bolting when he needed him the most, and Eren knew it. _But that’s what Eren does,_ people told Marco. _He runs when he can’t handle things._

But Eren hadn’t run this time.

Marco gulped thickly and drew an arm around the skinny body Eren inhabited, threading his legs between Eren’s the way he liked. He thought back to another body, another cluster of skin and bone and anger, and something in his chest ached. He wasn’t sure he would have the chance to hold that body close to him again. _Was Jean sleeping soundly?_ Marco found himself wondering. A part of him, the selfish part, wanted Jean to be torn to shreds. He wanted Jean angry and distraught and crying until his eyes burned and his cheeks ached. He wanted Jean to feel as shitty as he did. But then again, he didn’t. Jean didn’t deserve to have his dreams disturbed; he wasn’t the one who had something capable of killing him floating through his bloodstream. 

Eren sighed against him, pulse beating the same poison against Marco’s chest as he moved to accommodate him, and Marco dared to rest their foreheads together. They had both gone through this once, and here they were again, like the ghost of Thomas had jammed itself between their ribs and granted them one lasting connection to him. Marco wasn’t sure if it was irony. He was too tired to think. All he could do was feel, and press feeble apologies into Eren’s skin.

He was starting to feel warm again when Eren stirred. “Y’wake?” he slurred.

Marco bit his lip. “Just about.”

Eren moved again, frowning as he found less room than he expected, and then he heaved out a sigh. There were dark tracks of tears carved into Eren’s cheeks. They were faded, as if Eren had tried deftly to scrub them clear on the walk back, but they were there. They cut like battle wounds, and Marco was filled with the suffocating knowledge that he was the one responsible. Eren hadn’t changed out of his clothes, but the colours were smothered in the dark. There was no part to play here, in the middle of the night when there was no one to watch. Eren wasn’t the bold, vibrant bird of paradise everybody saw. Half asleep, he just looked small and alone, a charcoal boy with death in his blood and sickness in his sweat, and with a jolt Marco realised that he probably looked the same to Eren now.

“…made a promise…”

Marco blinked. “What was that?” he whispered, pressing his ear close to Eren’s mouth.

“Made… made a promise to someone…” Eren murmured, his voice barely legible. “Promised… I’d look out for you… even if you fucked up… because he knew how much I…” The leg that had Marco’s trapped against the sofa rose up a little higher, an attempt at a stroke that failed halfway through. “D-doesn’t matter… thing is, I fuck up, you fuck up, that’s okay.” Eren turned his head then, moved it out of range of Marco’s ear and rested his lips on his temple instead. “M’sorry, but you’re stuck with me,” he mumbled into his skin.

Marco’s eyes prickled. “E-Eren,” he whimpered, “E-Eren, don’t ever apologise for that, p-please, I should be the one who-”

“We’ve both been cowards,” Eren sighed. “S’like you said, s’how we deal with shit that makes us brave.”

A small, pitiful sob escaped Marco’s chest and he huddled closer, pressing Eren to his chest in a bid to share his warmth where his own body was shivering. “I don’t feel very brave right now,” he admitted.

Eren let out a rather ungainly snort through his nose. “Maybe not _now,_ but you can be… c’mon man m’not your mother, you don’t have to take the shit I say to heart.”

Marco chuckled. It felt good, despite it all. “Go on then. How do I get brave?”

Eren opened one bleary eye, the gold one, and looked right at him. “You call him,” he said.

Marco closed his eyes. “He doesn’t want to speak to me.”

“Mmmyoudon’tknowthat.” Eren yawned and shut the eye again. “Call him.”

“He said he hates me.”

“Call him.”

“Eren, it’s 3AM.”

“Call ‘immmm.”

Marco didn’t call. He ended up falling asleep for another few hours, Eren’s head stubbornly wedged in the crook of his elbow and body curved at an almost impossible angle. When he woke up again, it was because his phone was ringing.

He dived for it in a panic, Eren narrowly avoiding an elbow to the nose. He couldn’t find it. The one time he’d thrown it in frustration, and now he couldn’t find it. He patted down the sofa frantically, throwing Eren’s legs to one side as he searched, but all he could hear was the taunting ringtone continuing on a loop over and over, slowly fading out the harder he searched. Eren tried to help, but after a few feeble pats of the sofa he quickly curled back into a ball and started to snore. Blood roared in Marco’s ears. “C’mon, c’mon,” he begged, willing a higher power to give him a break in this one set of twenty four hours. His fingertips brushed its edge as the tone died, and Marco unlocked it with shaking fingers. _Was it him was it him was it him please be him please be Jean…_

The missed call icon looked the same. That meant…

“Oh shit, he’s leaving a message,” Marco hissed, slumping back on the sofa and pressing the corner of the phone to his forehead with a curse.

“Who is?” Eren mumbled.

Marco didn’t reply. He knew it was Jean. It had to be. No one else was up at this time of night and conscious enough to leave a voicemail. Waiting for the message to finish aged Marco; he suddenly felt every cell dying as he glared furiously at his phone, hoping it would speed it up somehow. If it was a long voicemail, what was Jean talking about? Marco felt a wave of nausea wash over him, but he fought it back with a grimace. He stood up, mumbled something incoherent to an already passed out Eren, and walked over to the kitchen island. It was just for something to do, to kill time before Jean’s message came through, and as he took a swig of water the icon appeared.

_You have one unopened voicemail._

The nausea came back like an enraged animal, so strong that Marco had to clutch a hand to his stomach as he pressed the ‘call’ button with every muscle and nerve on edge.

_Received today, at 3:07am._

Marco shut his eyes and prayed.

There was nothing but background noise for a while. Marco could hear the faint sound of cars driving past Jean’s window and suddenly he was back there, stood in the room with dust and paint in the air and Jean’s hand in his. He pushed the thought from his mind, and continued to listen.

That was when he heard it.

The _sob._

His heart broke at that noise.

“I don’t even know where to fucking begin with this…” Jean’s voice, croaking and raw, came through over the rain. “I don’t know what I’m fucking d-doing, I shouldn’t be… I hate you, I f-fucking _hate_ you, why am I calling your f-fucking phone at 3AM like that’s okay…?”

Marco wasn’t breathing. He was gripping the edge of the kitchen top like it was going to crumble between his fingers. He was hoping. He was hoping so hard that it was painful.

“I g-guess it’s because I have to tell you how much you’ve… h-how much it hurts, Marco. Because it does hurt. It’s like some…fucking…animal living in my stomach is trying to claw its way out and I can’t do anything to stop it, I just-” the line crackled as he let out another sob too close to the microphone, and Marco clutched the phone closer to his ear. “-I want it to stop, M-Marco. I want to stop hurting over you, I d-don’t _want_ to miss you every time you’re gone.” Jean was sniffling now, the words bumping into one another as they came out in a rush. “But I can’t fucking _help_ it. It’s like you’re in my… in my blood or something. A-and I know that sounds pathetic and, fuck, I know I sound like a teenage girl right now, b-but it’s 3AM and I miss you and I…” Another pause. A hissing breath that sounded like a curse wanted to weave itself in there too. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. And this happens to me so much it makes me dizzy.”

Marco’s eyes ached, but no tears came. He wished that this was a two sided call so he could cut in and say something. But what would he say? What _could_ he say? Everything that spilled out of his mouth was apologies and promises to make it better. There was no guarantee he could make it better, so maybe everything he said was just another breed of lie. He ran a hand over his face and rode out the eerie silence on the other end of the phone. Had Jean been waiting for him to pick up?

The words came like a torrent again. “Hitch left because I wasn’t who she wanted me to be. M-Mam… s-she left because I reminded her of shit she didn’t want to be reminded of. I made both of them c-crazy, I fucked them up and they left me because that’s what they had to do, j-just for a little while, so they could start feeling like themselves again. Because that’s what I do. I make people sick, and then they leave. That’s what happens to me, what’s always happened, but…” Jean spoke like he was a battleground, laying waste to anyone who dared step foot on him. “You are the only one who’s stayed, and r-right now…” A shaky sigh came down the line. “I don’t know if I can bear being left on my own again.”

Jean was tired. Marco could hear it in his voice. It wasn’t a physical kind of tired; it ran deeper than that, cut through what little bravado Jean had and hit his vitals with a kind of pain Marco knew well. Jean was tired of Being Jean Kirschtein.

There was another sniff, this one a little more together, until the confidence broke apart again like an eggshell. “I can’t watch you die, Marco,” he said, sniffling at the end to prove his point. “I don’t… I don’t want you to die, oh g-god…” A series of choking sobs collapsed all discernible sentences, and Marco hung his head, biting his lip so hard he was worried he would bite through it. “I don’t know what you went through with Thomas,” Jean said, “and f-frankly I don’t wanna know right now, b-but… I’m not you. I’m not Marco B-Bodt, and I can’t…”

The line cut off for a moment, and Marco imagined Jean putting his face in his hands and _crying_ for him. Jean didn’t understand. Marco had been diagnosed in time. He hadn’t _felt_ sick when he found out. That came later.

That was the thing about HIV – it was patient. It rested in your body like a cobra in long grass, perfectly happy to wait for the perfect time to strike. Thomas had been HIV positive when Marco had met him, and neither of them had known. _If only,_ Marco used to think. _If only he’d gotten checked, if only we’d been cautious, if only if only if only._ But there were no rewinds, no ‘if only’s to cash in. Thomas was dead, and Marco was halfway there. Knowing that he wasn’t dying, not yet, was what made Jean’s tears all the more painful.  

He listened to Jean’s small sounds for a little longer, and then the voice kicked in again. “I can’t just sit and wait for you to get sicker. I’m angry with you, I’m… I’m _so_ fucking angry, b-but it’s not just because you lied.” A sigh. “I’m angry because it’s true, Marco, it’s true that you’re sick and I can’t do anything about it and that’s frustrating and scary and... t-that’s not what you need. You need Mikasa or Ymir or… fuck you might even need Eren, b-but not me.”

The hole in Marco’s chest yawned wider, eclipsing the last lingering wisp of hope clinging to its edge. Jean didn’t mean it – _couldn’t_ mean it – but then it came.

Jean wheezed out a breath. “Marco, I don’t want to see you. I’m going to Christa’s. I’m taking Claudine. Please don’t call me, I have… a lot to think about, a-and I can’t have you around whilst I do.” There was a pause, enough for Marco to feel the numbness seep back into his bones, and then came the end of the message, small and quiet.

“Do you think I didn’t notice the way you shivered at night?”

The line went dead.

Marco didn’t let the phone drop from his ear straight away. He knew if he had, it would have just dropped on the floor and shattered, right there and then. He let it fall slowly, his hand no longer shaking, no longer scared. There was nothing to be scared about. The worst had happened.

Jean didn’t want to see him. Jean was staying away. Jean had cried down the phone to him.

Jean didn’t want him to _die._

Was he going to die? He’d convinced himself he wouldn’t for so long that the promise started to become faded in his mind with every repetition. Thomas had told him he wasn’t going to die, and then he had. Snuffed out in the blink of an eye, like an unneeded candle in a dark room. Was that all Marco was? Nothing but a hopeful little candle, burning so fiercely that he reached his end quicker than he should?

He let his eyes drift up to the ceiling, following the cracks that his landlord always refused to fix, and imagined himself cracking too, his foundations going rotten and his bricks and mortar crumbling and the people he cared about getting stuck in between. He shuddered out a soft, “oh,” and slid to the floor, a single tear able to poke its way out and trail down his face. His whole body ached with the fatigue of crying and sobbing and pleading. He just wanted to sleep without waking up for a very long time.

As his gaze trailed down, he caught the end of his phone lighting up. He took it slowly, his hands not feeling like they were attached to him with how heavy they were, and unlocked the screen.

**From: Ymir**  
Sent: 03:15  
_\- christa told me about ur hiv_  
\- that fukin sux dude im sorry  
\- theres a buncha fukheads from my old gang makin trouble, u cud be here in 5  
\- c’mon dude i know it helped u w/ thomas  
\- old times sake ?

Marco got his coat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I'm going into hiding seeyas


	20. Talking To Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, here's an update for you! 
> 
> I have actually had this done for a while, but I was writing for my original project in November for nano and this sadly had to take the back burner until I was done. This was one mega-chapter, but I had to cut it down in the end because it's just too hefty to post all at once. So this is the first part of the last chapter - the second and third parts are currently in the editing stage, and then an epilogue's going to be written too. So we're almost at the end everyone!  
> I want to thank you all for sticking with it and being so patient, and well...I hope this is worth the wait. 
> 
> As always, you can find me at attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com or pop me a comment!

After Thomas was diagnosed, Marco went walking. He left their room once the cries had drowned themselves out, locked up and just walked. The direction hadn’t mattered. Neither had the fog that clung to his clothes and soaked his skin. All he’d known was the path ahead and the sound of his feet hitting the concrete on an endless cycle.

Marco often thought back to that night and wondered what the hell he thought he would find, walking the way he did. A white door? A sudden drop? A dead end? He had wanted to walk until he could walk no more, until his feet bled and his muscles screamed and his eyes ached from the effort of staying open. He’d wanted to walk until the hurt matched the pain in his chest. It was the night he had met Ymir, and gotten the scar across his eyebrow. And here he was again, four years later, on the same walk; hurting from the inside out and getting ready to bump into Ymir. At least this time, he was expecting her.

She was waiting on the corner of a small alleyway for him, the heel of her biker boot pressed into the tired wall she was leant against, and as Marco approached he saw a flicker of light blinking through her fingers. It turned out to be a lighter, the sharp crack of its trigger the main giveaway, and as he drew near enough for Ymir’s features to spring into sight with every blink of the flame, he saw the tension tightening her jaw. When she folded her arms, the old leather jacket she wore cracked under the strain.

“You came, then?” Her tone was bored, uninterested, but Marco knew better. Her eyes came back to him immediately and locked on, even as he slumped against the wall beside her and exhaled slowly.

It hurt to speak – his throat was rubbed raw from all the bile-like truths that had come spilling like water, and with every shuddering breath it threatened to bring up more. The skin around his eyes stung. His nose throbbed as though it had been punched. Every inch of him sagged with fatigue. He just had to breathe – just breathe – for a little longer. Ymir gave him the time he needed, her eyes still on him but silent and motionless. She was remarkably patient in that way.

“Where else could I go?” he asked eventually, in a voice so hoarse and small even he shied from it.

Ymir nodded curtly. “Well, I’m touched.” She started igniting and extinguishing the lighter again, the light dazzling for a second and lost to the darkness the next.

It was the only light that touched the alley, Marco noticed; the lampposts on the main street nothing but dim, watery glows. The shadows stretching up like sun-starved plants along the alley’s length as the rest of Trost bloomed. The lighter cast Ymir’s face in such a way that she resembled the kind of person who told horror stories to children at Halloween. The stories themselves, however, weren’t far away. Marco felt a flicker of fear pass him by and curl within the chill set in his limbs, but it was hidden quickly. A car backfired a block or two away, and both he and Ymir twitched like nervous horses.

Ymir hesitated, finger hovering above the trigger of the lighter, and Marco saw the slight brow furrow and jaw clench that accompanied it. “How d’you feel?” she asked stiffly. It took Marco a moment to realise she was talking to him and not herself. She was trying and failing to look concerned. Sympathy was not a language Ymir was familiar with - Marco wasn’t sure it suited her – but he appreciated her attempt nonetheless.

He paused. “Like shit,” he answered honestly.

Ymir sniffed. “Sounds fair.”

Marco glanced away down the expanse of alley he _could_ see, but there was nothing. Not a thing stirred to distract him from the leaden feeling that came with too much crying and not enough sleep. He closed his eyes a second longer than he dared, and pressed the back of his head against the wall behind them. “Are you mad?” he asked. “That I didn’t… tell you, I mean?”

Ymir cocked her head at him. “S’none of my business what’s duckin’ and divin’ in your blood, pal.” The lighter flickered again. “I mean, it’s pretty shit of you to do, but I cannae be mad at something that don’t concern me.”

Marco sighed. Just like that, they were back on equal footing. Ymir’s talent of not getting offended easily often came in handy.

When another far more human sounding noise came from the end of the street, Ymir’s head snapped to attention. Suddenly they were back in Marco’s final year, sneaking around in the dark looking for trouble. He’d thought he’d never be so stupid as to do the same thing again – and yet…

He heard Ymir’s breath hitch and the lighter vanished into the depths of her jacket. Marco looked to her, and saw the way she wiped her sweaty hands on her jacket. He frowned. “Ymir?”

“Shut up.” Her voice was strained on octave too high to be natural. “Jus’… shut up. You’ll make it worse.”

Marco gulped. That leaden feeling in his gut made him reckless, but as he watched Ymir shake out her hands and curse thickly under her breath, he felt a flutter break through the numbness.

He knew better than to ask if Ymir was okay. They both knew she wasn’t.

“Where were they?” he asked, knowing it was a question she would answer.

Her intake of breath seemed sharper than usual, but his question relaxed her nonetheless. “Snout told me they were hot-wiring cars a few streets away. Should be easy to sneak up on ‘em if they’re too busy running electronics.”

Marco swallowed painfully. “Right.”

When things hurt the way they did at that moment, when they caught in his lungs and clawed at his guts, Marco’s numbness just grew larger; it stole through him like a thief and took that hurt, that fear, those inhibitions, and left something cold and dead in their place. It was a grounding, terrible feeling that meant Marco could chase after thugs or stride straight into a fight without looking back.

This time was different.

He could feel _everything._ He could feel the damp brick under his hands, the scared thump of his heart in his chest. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t usual. He wasn’t meant to be this awake. He could still hear the shallowness of Ymir’s breathing as she cast furtive glances down the alleyway and the street, and could see the way his own breath rose in clouds to meet their cousins currently blotting out the stars. This wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right. Jean’s face came to mind, and he just shut his eyes to hide the way tears sprung to the surface.

That was when he heard it.

The sound of a car, fighting against its ignition, halfway down the next street.

Ymir’s eyes flashed to his like a cat’s, the pupils dark and bottomless. “You hear that?”

Marco nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Ymir hummed thoughtfully, and before Marco could speak again produced a switchblade from her jacket pocket and flicked it open. It glinted wickedly in the light of a passing car, sly and cruel, and Marco felt a chill roll through him. He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the way they trembled, and gave her a curious look. Ymir mouthed ‘insurance’ and pocketed it again. She pushed off the wall as though that would be enough to shake off her fear, and gave Marco The Look. It was the look that said, “enough fucking around, let’s nail the bastards.”  Marco knew The Look.

He tried his best to leave the pain pressed against the wall as he went to Ymir’s side. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. Ymir’s eyes were dark and hooded as she watched him, ever careful. There was a short, silent communication between them – “you sure you’re ready?” “yeah asshole, quit worrying” – and then they were moving forwards, in the direction of the sputtering car, and into the dark.

Walking next to Ymir made him stronger. The crunch of her boots on the ground and the heavy sway of her body ended up being something he matched as they strode along together, minds only on the car and nothing else. Ymir called this sort of thing cathartic – Marco usually called it a death wish. Every step sounded too loud, somehow, every flick of Ymir’s lighter cracking like a gunshot. Like sonar, it bounced back in the echoes and made Marco twitch and glower even more. He knew what the two of them would look like, emerging from shadows like they were made of them, but it wouldn’t be enough to put off a gang like this. Maybe Ymir’s switchblade wasn’t such a bad idea.

They walked for a minute or so before they saw it. A dull streetlight illuminated the scene like some kind of twisted classical painting; smoking car, thugs and all. As it turned out, the hot-wired car had not been an altogether loyal and faithful companion to its owner, and was continuing to impart its stalling, sputtering legacy onto the people who’d stolen it.

“Fucking _hell!_ ” someone cursed behind the wheel.

The rest of the gang were gathered around the car like wolves, snapping and complaining about how their fun had been ruined by the choking engine. They were all clad in dark clothes, resisting the urge to stand out and instead melting into the dark that was so often their home. Scars seemed handed out amongst them like party favours, and once young faces were now forever blemished by charred flesh and shredded skin. Everything about them was raw and savage; Marco recognised the sharp smirks and cold stares the gang threw at one another from Ymir the first time he’d met her, and knew that though she’d walked from this life years ago, the echoes in her body remained.

Ymir seemed to think the same, for when she bellowed out an, “OI” that stopped the group in their tracks, it dripped with the venom she’d been taught by them so well. Marco squared his shoulders and glared the moment eyes turned on them.

“What the fuck do you want?” was the first eloquent question, and spat so quickly Marco couldn’t discern where it had come from.

“S’not a matter o’ want, boyo.” Ymir flashed her lighter long enough to light up her snarl. “Wouldn’t want anything from you fucking jackals, least of all you.” She looked to Marco. There was a performance to this, masks that had to be put on and lines recited, and his part was coming up soon. That knowledge set ice in Marco’s stomach, and jerked his mind from the bottom of his pill pot. “What d’you think, Twinkle?” Ymir asked, her lips spreading wide over her teeth. “Ever seen such miserable sacks o’ shit in your life?”

“Never,” Marco replied. He motioned towards the car. “I’d also have the sense to steal something worth the trouble.”

“Fucking say that again.” The driver stuck their head out of the car, not annoyed enough to completely leave it yet. As with the other gang members, there was a permanent scowl etched on their face, but instead of a snarl curling on their lips, there was a thin, bored line of a mouth that pouted the longer they weren’t inside the car. “You asked the wrong question, Jax,” the driver said, the boredom stretching to their voice. “Should’ve been a _who_ instead of a _what._ Step into the light, assholes, if you know what’s good for you.”

Ymir snorted. “As if we fucking would. Marco, don’t move.”

“Do it.” The driver slung an arm out to drape across the roof of the car. The movement brought the driver into a sliver of light, and Marco noticed the bright flash of eyes not unlike Ymir’s. The driver was a girl, slender and wiry like a greyhound, and the further she leaned, the more Ymir’s fist clenched. To Marco’s surprise, she stepped forward. He did the same.

The streetlight was weak and barely working, but it did enough to raise the shadows from Ymir’s face and cause a few hushed whispers to rise up from the gang around them. Marco was completely ignored, which he was thankful for. It meant he had time to scope out the group. Eight of them, including the driver. Four each. Marco could take three on a good day– if they weren’t all running at him at once. Somehow he doubted they would wait their turn. It also wasn’t a good day.

A flicker of recognition crossed the driver girl’s eyes as she looked down her nose at them both, and then the bored mouth quirked. “Well, well, well,” she said, leaning so far out of the car now she was close to falling out. “Look what the cat threw up.”

“He-fucking-llo to you too, Traute,” Ymir said. Traute Carven. Marco remembered her name from the papers. The second in command, renowned for her work with stolen cars. She and Marlow would have gotten along, in another life.

Traute sized them up, looking from Ymir to Marco and back again, before slipping out of the car and slamming the door so hard it rocked on its suspension. Marco didn’t like the way she raked her stone grey eyes over him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked, directing the question at Ymir. “Doing the thin blue line’s dirty work, are you?”

“There’s nae fuzz here, Carven, what do you take me for? Some kinda grass?” Ymir spat on the ground in front of her like she was claiming territory, and chanced a look around at the gang members closing in on them. “You’ve fallen on hard times if these are your best men, you know. If Marcel’s playin’ at bets, he’s fuckin’ losing.”

The thin smile Traute gave was not a pleasant one. “Still got that good humour, I see. Shame. I thought I’d kicked it out of you the last time we met.”

Marco knew it was unwise to grab for Ymir’s hand – she might well crush it and throw it aside – so he did the next best thing. He gathered his courage in his hands like the leads to fighting dogs, and when he fixed his stare on Traute, he released it. “This isn’t your patch. Move on, all of you.” He surprised even himself with the bite to his words.

Traute tried to laugh, but failed. She clearly didn’t have enough in her to care. “Oh, you noticed our little expansion, did you?” she said, impressed. “And here we thought we’d been nice and quiet about it.”

“We have our sources,” Ymir cut in before Marco could respond. “Funny what the rats n’ mice hear.”

“Once a criminal, always a criminal,” Traute said. She almost sounded triumphant at the words. “You may escape the belly of the beast, but you never leave its heart.” She took a step towards them, head thrown back in the same way Ymir did when she was getting ready to punch something. “Run along now, before you get yourself hurt. Again.”

“We don’t want to fight you,” Marco said, very conscious of the bodies inching closer to them and Ymir’s building temper. “Just… keep on moving. Leave the car. It’s not worth your time.”

Traute merely looked amused. “You’re cute. Stupid, but cute. Where did you get this one, Ymir? Changed teams in more than one way, or did you threaten him into coming?”

Marco chose to ignore her. The rest of them really were pressing in on them now, the cold stares and curled lips directed at them and them alone. One of them caught his eye, and pursed his lips in a sarcastic kissing motion. His companion sniggered nastily. Marco felt a drop in his stomach – perhaps this was a bad idea – and then he saw Ymir smirk. “You got a big fuckin’ gob on you, Carven. Not been putting that mouth of yours to use on Marcel have you? Heard tell his girlfriend’s the jealous type.”

“Fuck you,” Traute spat. “You got one last chance to get the hell out of this street or we’ll tear you a new hole.”

Marco gave a questioning glance to Ymir. This was the moment. He’d gotten good at pinpointing when she was ready to start swinging fists, and as he noticed a particularly malicious glint appear in her eye, he braced himself. Ymir threw her arms out like she was beckoning the street around them and fixed Traute with a lazy, mocking smile. “All the better for me to fuck myself.”

Traute’s eyes narrowed.

The gang didn’t need a signal. The first one took a running start at Ymir, his arm falling to take a swipe at her – but she was ready for him. In one fell swoop, she swung around and landed her knee hard into the centre of his body, and before he could fold in on himself, she hit him across the jaw in a very sharp right hook. He crumpled to the floor like paper, Ymir let out a barking laugh, and that was when someone barrelled into Marco’s side.

He was winded before he even hit the wall, desperately sucking in air even as the man, squat and ragged looking, leered at him and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. Marco didn’t give him long to gloat; with a rather dizzied smile, he promptly wrenched himself free of the guy’s grip and slammed him against the wall in his place, face first. He ensured his attacker stayed where he was with a kick to the back of his knees. He buckled with little more than a whimper.

This moment – this was when the numbness chose to kick in. It worked better than any painkiller. In the middle of a fight, Marco finally felt weightless. There was no time to worry about what ifs or when woulds: there was just adrenaline, blood and pain, all three a toxic cocktail swimming inside him. And anger. Lots and lots of anger.

The moment the first man hit the floor his companions charged to replace him, jostling and swarming so Marco couldn’t grab just one of them. One would jab out at him in the limited light, but when he would move to block their attack, another would come from the side he’d left open and exposed. It was organised, cold and calculated, like they had done this thousands of times before – and, Marco supposed, they had.

He didn’t know where Ymir was; by the sound of cursing and cries of pain, she was holding her own somewhere to his right, but he didn’t like to dwell on it. He has to pay more attention to what was going on with _him._ He was knocked to the ground without a word of warning moments later, and before he knew it he was being pinned in place by the one who’d made the kissing motion earlier. He looked young, Marco noticed, young and angry and not quite experienced enough to hide the fear lurking in the corners of his eyes. Something in those eyes seemed familiar, and he couldn’t help but stare at them.

They were a danker, dirtier version of galaxies.

The numbness slipped.

Before Marco could even attempt to get clear, a blow to the side of his head made his ears ring and brought everything out of focus. He blinked away the colour dancing at the edge of his gaze, cursing himself. _Get yourself together. Don’t you dare let every person with fear in their eyes remind you of him._

A collective roar drove Kisser to hit him again. A blaze of pain burst across his face. Marco mutely wondered if his nose had been broken. He managed to get his footing on the concrete and flipped them over with a great wrench of effort, and now it was the gang member flattened against the ground and Marco bearing down on him. “Go on, Boris, fuck him up!” he heard one of them snarl. Marco spat out a gobbet of blood next to Boris’s head and dragged him up to within inches of his own face, lip curling in a canine sort of way. Boris gazed up at him, glare withering a little and giving way to fear. Just a sliver, tucked in under the surface of his anger. It was enough to make Marco falter.

The man who’d spoken stepped in, and the fist that came smashing into his jaw was one Marco hadn’t even seen appearing in his line of vision. Dizzied, he fell off Boris and lay sprawled in the dirt. Before anyone could get hold of him again he was wriggling, kicking, punching, scrambling to his feet, dodging another punch and finally, _wonderfully_ landing a kick directly into someone’s crotch. He had enough time to watch them sink to the ground with a mixture of satisfaction and sympathy before Boris grabbed hold of his jacket and yanked him backwards. Marco pinwheeled frantically to keep himself upright but managed to wrench himself free, dragging Boris halfway across the concrete with him – and was stopped by a very large, hard fist driving itself deep into his stomach.

Marco choked. He fell to his knees, got handed another blow across his face that sent him face down on the dirt, and there he remained, wheezing for breath. He wasn’t sure he would ever want to look into the mirror again after tonight; he’d been cut somewhere, as he could feel blood running sticky in his lashes and crusting on his skin. He hoped he looked frightening, but in all honesty he probably just looked desperate. A guy with a death wish walking into a pit of snakes and expecting to come out the better for it. He’d never fought with Ymir’s gang, never wanted to; he’d known the risks the day Ymir had come to him covered in blood and bruises and half conscious. But today had been enough, _just_ enough, for him to think it a good idea.

He tried to draw in a breath, but that was when the kicking started. He tried to curl himself into a ball as best he could, his jacket not quite enough to shield him from the heavy duty boots that fell upon him. Every breath was kicked out of him as quickly as he gained it, and though every now and again his feeble kicks struck shins or kneecaps, it was no use. There were too many.

There was a break in the kicking, and he heard a menacing sounding _click_ come from one of the gang members’ hands. It was a small sound, barely there at all in the din of shouts and crunching boots, but it was enough for him to force his head up. The weakly flickering streetlight gave enough of a tired yellow beam to catch the shine of metal. Marco’s stomach plummeted. _They had a knife. Holy shit, one of them had a fucking **knife** …_

Ymir’s hoarse battle cry rose out over the noise, and Marco’s paralysis lifted. He uncurled himself and rolled to his feet, staggering a little with the effort. The glint was gone, the blade replaced back in the someone’s pocket, and when he searched the faces of the men crowding him he couldn’t figure out which one had been attached to which limbs. None of them were looking at him. Why wasn’t he being kicked back down? He shut his eyes and coughed thickly, tasting the coppery tang of his blood. His sickening, dirty, diseased blood. He spat on the ground again, and lifted his head to see the entire group turning like a single creature towards one end of the street. Marco’s eyes widened when what he thought were lights popping in his eyes turned out to be flashing blue ones.

“It’s the fucking pigs!” someone shrieked, and everyone scattered.

In the ensuing panic, Marco was knocked to the floor again, and rolled onto his back despite his body’s feeble protests. He was kicked a few more times for good measure by fleeing gang members, but his sides were already too bruised to give out much more pain. It was like they’d given up reminding him that he was getting the life kicked out of him.

“MARCO!” he heard someone shout, and then he was being hauled to his feet, his hair brushed out of his eyes and shaking hands clasped tight to his cheeks. He took one beautiful gulp of air now he finally had the option, and his lungs stuttered. He nearly retched at how small they felt.

“Oi, idiot. Wakey wakey, you fucking lunatic, the cops are here.”

A little shake and a slap to the face rattled him. When he opened his eyes properly, he saw Ymir. She had a split lip and a cut across her cheekbone that looked sure to swell up, but she was okay.

“Did we win?” he asked.

“Oh aye, we fuckin’ slaughtered ‘em,” Ymir said, eyes flicking to the people around them. The gang were backing away, some of them running, some of them limping, and others looking reluctant to leave their quarry with so much blood inside them. “Fucking bastards,” Ymir muttered as she watched them retreat. “Back when I was with ‘em, there was such a thing as class. One of those nasty fuckers actually body checked me. _Me._ Think it was that git who was whacking you, Twinkle. Nasty piece o’ fuckin’ work, that one.”

Marco was only half listening. He was too busy scanning every retreating back, eyes searching for that one person, that one glint…

“Anyway, fuck that, we gotta go,” Ymir urged. When Marco didn’t move, she gave him another shake. “You deaf, dundernuts? The cops. We both got previous, those bastards would love to get their hands on-”

“They’re down there!” a deep voice boomed from the direction of the flashing lights. “I saw ‘em! Scattered like cockroaches the minute they saw the lights!”

Marco went cold. Ymir was right. If they were seen, it would be over. The police were still trying to get him for anything they could think up; if they found him cowering and bloodied in a dark street post-brawl, they would have all the evidence they needed. Marco couldn’t afford bail. He wasn’t even sure there would be a bail, not if the officer in charge was bent enough.

Marco locked gazes with Ymir, took a deep breath, and started to run.

“Hey, get back here!”

“They went down that way, get after them!”

Marco blocked out the shouts, the commands, the barked orders for them to stop and put their hands in the air. He just ran, Ymir sprinting beside him as they turned down the sidestreet the gang had used for their escape. There was a chance they would catch the group up, but Marco didn’t want to think about that. The gang could put him in a hospital. The police could get him locked away. He knew which option he preferred. His rasping lungs had clearly taken more of a beating than Marco had realised, as all too soon they were straining and aching with want of a rest. Fatigue weighed down his limbs and made every stride an effort, but he kept going, knocking over a few bins in an attempt to make their path harder to follow. He tried to ignore the pounding in his head and the metallic taste rising in his throat, and just focused on the street ahead. He needed to keep going – _had_ to keep going – and the thunderous sound of police-certified shoes clomping on the sodden ground like hooves drove him on.

He caught glimpses of a few fleeing gang members as they ran, some leaping over walls or running in serpentine motions in case there were shots fired. Some were still running through their injuries and were leaving spots of blood in their wake like a macabre trail. Those were the slower ones, and Marco and Ymir passed them relatively easily. Sympathy for what would happen to them when the officers caught up vanished quickly when one spat in Marco’s direction, and another tried to trip Ymir when she got too close.

“How,” Ymir panted, “how much… of a lead… we got?”

Marco glanced over his shoulder and was relieved to find that the men in pursuit weren’t recognisable. They were all younger, inexperienced, the kind who got given the terrible jobs because they were new and didn’t know any better. That usually meant they were too trigger-happy and nervous to be given any firearms – at least, Marco sincerely hoped so. It also – usually – meant they had awful stamina. “The other guys will slow them down,” Marco puffed. “We have… we have a bit of a lead on them…”

“Good enough for me.”

Marco let out a rather unmanly yelp as a hand hooked itself into his jacket collar. He was yanked backwards into darkness, and fell sprawling into something that swore. “Ymi-”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” she hissed. A hand appeared on his mouth and clamped down, hard. No matter how hard he struggled, it stayed firmly lodged against his cut and bleeding lips. Marco let her press him flush against the damp brickwork of what he assumed was an alleyway and glowered at her. She glowered right back. The blood drying on his face began to itch, but Marco didn’t dare move. He could hear the footsteps. He heard the slight crumple of freshly starched uniforms as the young officers stooped to examine the gang members who hadn’t got away in time. He heard the tinny _clink_ of handcuffs being snapped around wrists.

Ymir moved to stand beside him, her hand falling from his mouth. Marco tried his best to keep his breaths low and steady, despite the burning in his lungs and the adrenaline still pulsing through his system. Every inch of him was instructing him to run and to keep running until he physically couldn’t anymore, but the tensile force gravitating around Ymir kept his feet firmly rooted to the ground. The officers were getting closer.

“…d-d-don’t see why we get this sh-sh-shift…”

“Bullshit, if you ask me. Dawks has a nerve, sitting in his cosy office drinking whiskey whilst we’re out here scraping thugs off the street like gum…”

“Sp-speaking of…”

“Daz, for the last time, you ain’t getting shit from me.”

“B-but it helps my n-n-nerves!”

“If nerves are your issue maybe you shouldn’t be doing this job…”

The voices grew fainter. There were two of them, Marco discerned, one voice high and strained and the other crackly and mocking. The others must have fallen back to take care of the men they had arrested. Following Ymir’s lead, Marco crept towards the mouth of the alley again, his fear spiking. One glance the way they had come saw a few men being pushed and shoved in the direction of a waiting riot van, its revolving light illuminating the street like a fairground. A glance to the right saw only one officer following the curve of the road. If he squinted, Marco could make out the shape of a radio clasped in the officer’s hand. _That explained the faintness of the voice_ , he thought with a sigh of relief. A glance ahead-

Something in Marco’s system gave a nasty little jolt.

Boris was leaning against a large dustbin, in an alley directly opposite their own. He was trying to catch his breath, doubling over to suck in huge lungfuls of air, and his knees were trembling with the effort of keeping him upright. He wasn’t moving, though he had every chance to continue on down the alley and into freedom, and as he straightened up and looked feverishly around, Marco realised that there was no ‘down the alley’ for him. Boris’s hiding place held a dead end. Marco couldn’t see too clearly, but the terror was tangible; it moved through the air like a toxin.

Almost as though he could smell it, the officer on the radio stopped. He was talking quietly to his colleague on the radio now, like he knew there were hiding places he hadn’t yet searched.

“Honestly Daz, you’re a little pathetic. You have to admit that,” came the crackling voice from the radio.

“I’m n-not!” The officer protested.

“Yes, you are.” There was a flurry of noise from the radio that sounded like someone swearing thickly. “Bet you wouldn’t even know what to do with one of these scum if you caught them.” Another grunt from the radio made it obvious that Daz’s tormentor was one of the officers in the riot van.

Daz sounded wounded. “Yes I w-would! I’ve read all the t-t-training guides!”

“Guides are nothing,” came the other officer’s blasé tone, “It’s all about reaction, about what you do when you’re faced with shit like this. No training manual’s gonna prepare you for that.”

At that precise moment, Boris leant a little too heavily on the dustbin. His arm slipped, and the bin went over with a heart-skipping crash. The officer jerked his head up from his radio with a squeak of alarm. Marco was pretty sure the whole street stopped breathing at that moment. Boris didn’t move, his eyes scrunched up tight and his jaw clenching so hard Marco was surprised his teeth were still intact. It reminded him of a child who’d just been caught out in a hide and seek game, and was hoping against hope that prayer would save them.

The officer called Daz didn’t move either, for a moment. He just stood, his breaths hitched and noisy to Marco’s ringing ears. He took a step forward, hesitated, then said into his radio, “s-s-something’s down one of the a-alleys.”

Marco exhaled slowly, quietly, hoping that Daz’s hearing wasn’t bad enough that he would go venturing down the wrong alley. Boris had straightened up now, face blanched but eyes narrowed and strangely peaceful. Marco fought to meet his eye, to indicate that he should run, but it never happened. Boris closed his eyes before there was a chance, and backed away into the gloom.

“Wait for back up,” his companion assured him. “We’ll get someone down there to scout it out.”

“I c-c-can do it, Ian! I’m not some sort of c-c-coward who needs looking after!”

“Daz, it’s protocol to-”

“I’ll show you who’s s-s-scared!” Daz whirled around and charged towards the alleyway, his uniform creaking as he ran.

There was a window of opportunity to run. Ymir seized Marco’s wrist and dragged him out after her, a manic grin his reward as they broke out of the alleyway and started to charge down the street away from the stuttering officer and his less than helpful companion. Marco’s head became a lot lighter. They were going to make it. They were going to get away, and he was going back to his apartment and his cat and Eren and Mikasa and everything would be okay… more or less.

What drove him to think of Boris, he didn’t know. The thought poked and prodded its way into his mind without asking permission. It asked whether he had a good place to come home to. Whether he had friends, a partner, a mother who missed him. Marco’s furious pace faltered. The way Boris had just stood, tall  and confident, in that alley bothered him. Why hadn’t the boy run? He could have made it, if he sprinted. The officer didn’t look like the athletic or caring type. He could have run into the alley they had been hiding in, and got them all locked up. Why had he just stood there, calmly accepting his fate, and not even tried to-

Marco stopped dead. Ymir’s words came back to him.

_“One of those nasty fuckers actually body checked me. Think it was that git who was whacking you, Twinkle….”_

“Ymir,” he said, feeling a little faint, “check your pockets.”

“What?!” Ymir hissed, giving his arm a yank so fierce he almost fell over. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Marco gave her a sharp yank in return, so much so that she stumbled and flashed him a wild-eyed glare. “Ymir, check them!” he demanded, jerking his head back to the alleyway they’d just stumbled out from. He had the kind of feeling that loomed steadily, that crept into his belly and curdled everything it found until he felt sick and woozy.

“You _are_ fuckin’ serious,” she groaned. “If we get arrested, if we go to fuckin’ holding…” Rolling her eyes, Ymir did as he asked. She rifled and rummaged as quickly as she could, still muttering angrily to herself about Marco’s paranoia – until her hand faltered on her jacket pocket. Her eyes flew up to Marco’s, and his stomach clenched.

“My switchblade,” she said, hoarsely. “My fuckin’ switchblade’s gone.”

Marco’s stomach dropped like a cannonball. He looked back over his shoulder, back at the alleyways. “He’s got it,” he said numbly. “Th-that guy. Boris. He has your switchblade.”

“What are you talking abou-”

“That officer hasn’t got a clue.” Marco felt his breaths coming faster, more hurried as he began to glance back at the alley and then to Ymir, alley and Ymir, alley and Ymir, like a pendulum. “He’s just…just blundered in there without knowing…”

“What, and you could do better?” Ymir huffed. “Bodt, come on.”

Every part of his body was telling him to listen to Ymir. Every muscle, every tendon, every pounding slab of flesh screamed to turn tail and run and not look back. This wasn’t some vagrant with a death wish, or a drunkard thinking he was the next Bruce Willis. This was a member of Ymir’s old gang, with a knife he probably knew how to wield. This was someone who hurt people on a daily basis.

Marco felt his fists clench without asking them to. His heart roared angrily in his ears, logic dictating one thing and his emotion telling him the other. He ended up shaking his head, a humourless laugh escaping his lips. “I can’t help it,” he said, walking backwards and throwing his head up to the sky. “He was right. I can’t help caring. I can’t help – ugh, god…”

“Well, learn not to!” Ymir snapped. She looked worried, Marco realised, her eyes wide and every part of her poised to run. She wasn’t in attack mode any longer – she was focused on getting away, and that was it. Nothing else mattered. “You’re being an idiot, come the fuck on.”

Marco shook his head again. He wanted to be like her. He wanted to be able to walk away and not get the gnawing feeling in his gut that suggested he could have done something. He couldn’t face the potential headline about another attack, some dusty reporter sadly typing that tragically, their grey and tired city was once again stained with blood, the only colour it seemed to know. The tug grew stronger within him until it was a chain dragging him back, and he even dared to step back a little. Ymir’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t,” he almost choked out. “I can’t, Ymir, I can’t just leave him, I...” He ducked his head, listening to the sounds of the city around him. There was no shouting, no grunts of pain, no screaming. But there was time.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head, “I have to go.”

Before Ymir could shout another word after him, he turned on his heel and sprinted back towards the alleyway. He tried to ignore how his words felt clammy from constant use, and stuck in his throat a little as he ran.

There were two ways he could do it, he thought as he charged back towards the gap in the street ahead. He could slip in quietly, sneak up behind the man with the knife and try to disarm him as quickly as possible, without getting the officer involved at all. That was the most sensible plan, obviously, but the panic was overtaking him. It was swelling like a great balloon in his stomach, rising higher and higher and squashing his heart against his ribs with every hammering beat it gave. That was the only reason Marco gave for skidding around the corner of the alleyway and saying nothing at all. He almost tripped into the bin Boris had knocked over as he stopped abruptly.

There was no one there.

“Hello?” he called out. Straining to hear any noise that would give someone away, he walked a few steps deeper into the alley, squinting into the dark to see if there was a shape that could be construed as human lurking in the gloom. It was quiet – too quiet to be natural. There was a kind of heaviness to it, like someone was intentionally keeping it that way, and Marco took another cautious step. His shout was still bouncing around the alley like a ping pong ball, so he waited. He still wasn’t far into the alleyway, still teetering on its edge. The shadows weren’t quite reaching the toes of his boot, and as he took another step and let them coat him silently, he heard a rustle of movement. He froze. It sounded like it was coming from the very back of the alley, where the shadows were at their densest. It had sounded, suspiciously, like someone shifting their feet…

“Argh!”

The thick weight that slammed into Marco from the right took him by surprise. The breath he’d been so carefully holding escaped in a blustered rush as he was knocked against the nearest wall with teeth-gritting force. Though his head was starting to swim again, he tried to struggle- but it was no use. His body was being pressed into the alley wall by a warm, shaking body, and there was no way he could wriggle free. Marco let out a groan as his arm was twisted behind his back, so tight that pain popped in his shoulder. He knew that manoeuvre. It was something taught and practiced for hours. It was something essential to police training.

“No,” he tried to say, but his voice came out muffled against the grime and dirt.

“I kn-knew there was something going on!” Daz cried out, too loudly. He shoved Marco even further into the wall, as though hoping it would give way and force him through the bricks and mortar. Marco winced. “Th-thought you could jump me in an alleyway, did you? Haven’t seen that one b-before.”

Marco strained to look at him. Coward or not, Daz was certainly strong. He’d clearly passed that part of the training with flying colours. He looked pale and shaky close up, yet triumph shone in his face as he brought out handcuffs from his pocket. They swung in the limited light of the alley, winking at Marco with all the promises they held, and his teeth gritted.

“Please,” he tried, “you have to listen to m-”

“You’re that one they talk about, aren’t you?” Daz said, cutting across his words. “You’re the one who always i-i-interferes. Marco B-B-Bodt.”

“My reputation precedes me,” Marco grunted. He twitched at the chill of cold metal against his wrists.  “Look, we don’t have time for this…”

Daz wasn’t listening. “They’ve been trying to get you on something for m-m-months,” he stammered, excitement filling his voice, “and now I’m the one who’s caught you! There’ll be c-c-commendations for me!”

The cuffs closed on Marco’s wrists with a snap. His heart jolted, and something in the dark moved. “You don’t understand,” he hissed, trying to at least jerk away from the wall and point towards the direction of the noise. “There’s someone-”

“G-get moving!” In one swift move, Marco was pulled away from the wall and given a hard shove in the small of his back. He didn’t have time to think about keeping his balance; with a hiss of pain, he fell to his knees, spitting out the blood and grit that had collected in his mouth. He squinted up at Daz, suddenly looking so much bigger with his uniform and his radio in his hand. He was calling in a report, Marco realised as he spat out more grime. He happened to be having trouble. “S-s-stupid thing,” he cursed, hitting the radio with the heel of his hand. “C-c-come on…”

Marco got to his feet slowly, his legs shaking and every inch of him on edge. The fatigue seeping into his limbs was making him sway a little in his efforts to right himself, but his eyes were everywhere, sweeping the length of the alley and back again. Boris couldn’t have found a way out; he would have run by now, if he had. Doubt crackled through Marco’s mind. Maybe Boris was waiting for someone to distract the officer? Maybe he really had been frozen in place because he was scared, and once Marco blundered in like some sort of idiot he’d broken loose and disappeared down an invisible branch of the alley? Maybe he didn’t have the knife at all. Ymir could have dropped it, and the thug with the knife Marco had seen could have been one of the people trussed up inside the police’s riot van. There might not have been a reason to come down to Daz in the first place.

A cold dread stole through him. Was there a chance he’d got it wrong?

Daz’s radio crackled into life and Marco felt the officer step closer to him. “N-now we have to go… are you going come qu-qu-quietly?” he asked.

Marco let out a long, tired sigh. He didn’t care about right or wrong anymore. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to break down again. He wanted to lie somewhere until everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours didn’t matter anymore. He gave a slow, defeated nod, and got a not so hefty shove towards the alley’s mouth. How was he going to tell Mikasa?

“Th-that’s it, n-no funny business,” Daz said, trying his best to sound professional as he followed behind him. “It’s all over, y-you’re going to be spending some time in the cells until we figure out what to ch-ch-charge you with.”

Marco closed his eyes with a sharp inhalation of gritty breath. When he opened them again, they fell directly onto a cold, steel glint.

* * *

Fifteen seconds.

It took Marco fifteen seconds.

Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. It flooded through his body and charged him up like a battery. It held a promise, primal in its nature, to take care of him; to protect from harm and get him out of every situation he threw himself so stupidly into. It felt like walking into a room where nothing could reach him – no sense could reach his skin, his nose, his mouth, his eyes, and he was left floating. But always, there was a small buzz in the back of Marco’s mind to remind him that this bliss was temporary. He would be brought back to reality eventually, sometimes gently and sometimes hard, and he had to be ready for it.

All of this went through Marco’s mind, and his senses returned to him. Bit by bit.

Fifteen seconds.

The sound came first. The clatter of Daz’s radio falling to the ground, the sudden shuffle of feet and the muffled sound of something driving its way through fabric and into flesh. The grunt Marco made as a body barrelled into him. The shriek of Daz, the sudden tinny shout of other people from the radio, the gasp from the body against his. The sound of something dripping. Daz sobbing. Someone swearing.

Fifteen seconds.

Then came the smell. The smell of the alley, of Daz’s sweat, of a faint copper that Marco knew so well, and the smoke from the choking city.

Fifteen seconds.

Then Marco could see. He could see the dark edges of the alley. He saw the flashing blue lights that were tearing through the sidestreet, despite how nearly impossible it was to fit a car down any sidestreet in Trost. He looked down at murky eyes that were fixed on him, wide and horrified and sorry, and then they darted down. Marco’s gaze, loyal and obedient, followed the line of sight.

It took Marco fifteen seconds to realise that Ymir’s switchblade was lodged in his stomach, and not Daz’s.

He staggered backwards. Daz fell away from him, still sobbing and screeching commands into his radio. Marco didn’t hear what he was saying; all he could hear was noise. He collapsed against the wall, eyes still fixed unblinkingly on the handle jutting out of his stomach as his knees gave way and he slid to the floor.

He wondered why he wasn’t screaming. He couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t hurting. Blood was dripping out of him, bit by bit, but there was no feeling. _Adrenaline_ , he thought blankly. His fingers flexed in the cuffs. Was it going to hurt soon?

“I didn’t mean to do it!” Boris was screaming. “I was going for the cop, I was only gonna scare them with it! But the guy _moved,_ he fucking moved and I just reacted! I panicked, okay, I panicked!”

Daz was still sobbing on the ground, throwing the radio into the depths of the alleyway as a sea of blue uniforms cascaded in from the cars. Marco felt a flash of panic pierce through the fizz in his system, and his breathing stumbled and tripped over in his chest. His skin came back to life, cold and clammy like he was running a high fever. When he tried to shift his shoulders, he found that he was shaking. His eyes snapped wide. His breathing got even worse to control, like it was a tide that just didn’t want to turn for him, and then he looked down again. His adrenaline gave up.

The pain seared through him like magma, and there was nothing left for Marco to do.

He screamed.

“Get him out of cuffs!” someone barked, and then a figure clad in green arrived. They were older and blonde and handsome, and that was all Marco registered. They freed his hands in an instant, the cuffs falling away and lying like a dead animal on the ground beside them, and Marco felt another tremendous shudder ripple through him. He tried to speak to the figure, to offer a simple ‘help’ or a ‘thank you’ – but his throat was seizing up and even his screams were getting choked in the desperation to breathe.

He didn’t want to die. He couldn’t die, not now, not yet, he wasn’t ready, it wasn’t fair…

“He’s going into shock!” they shouted over their shoulder. “Get me some blankets and a stretcher!” They turned back to him then, face framed by blonde hair and gaunt with concealed worry. “Stay with me son, talk to me, what’s your name? Where do you live? Do you have someone we can call?”

Marco’s eyes flickered weakly. His tongue jammed to the roof of his mouth, useless despite how much he wanted to use it. His vision was fading again, his terrified body deciding that shutting down was the only possible option. He was tempted to let it. He’d spoken about giving in so many times – what would happen if he did? The person in green was shouting again. The words turned to nothing but white noise that buzzed around Marco’s head. He blinked slowly. The aching in his stomach was swelling to a dull roar. Soon, even the white noise faded out. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe, he was going to die, and it was all going to happen in a dirty Trost alleyway.

He screwed his eyes up tight, gave a small hiccoughing sob, and slipped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls into a hole*


	21. Waiting For Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here we are folks, the end of the line!   
> I decided to cut up the chapter because I thought it would split nicely into two little sections...turns out I decided to rewrite almost the entirety of the second part which has ended up making it as big (if not bigger) than the first part. D'oh.  
> Anyway, this is it. This is the end of Searching For Superman. It's been a big project that's taken two years for me to finish, but it's finally here and well... I hope you enjoy it.   
> I want to thank all of you for sticking with me and this story and filling my inbox with so many wonderful comments and kudos and just... all the support in the world which I would not even have believed possible. I don't want to get too sappy, but know when I say thank you for all you've done for me, I really mean it.   
> With that said and done, I hope you enjoy this.   
> As always, I'm contactable on tumblr here: attackonmyponderland.tumblr.com

When he was younger, Marco had always wondered what dying felt like. He would twist himself up in knots worrying about whether it hurt, whether it was scary, whether there was something on the other side waiting for him like his parents promised there was. When he’d spoken to Thomas about it, he just shrugged. “There has to be something,” he said, “or else we wouldn’t bother hoping.”

Marco hadn’t felt anything. It was just dark, and a little cold. Being in the dark wasn’t so bad; it was soft and comforting in a way, still and quiet. It was all that Marco craved, after fighting for so long.

But something, be it his body’s pig-headedness or fate, brought him back.

When his eyes flickered open and the too-bright lamps beat down on his face, the aches and sores rushed back with such ferocity he winced and shut his eyes again, screwing them tightly closed. The scene came back to him; the alley, the blood, the sirens. The knife sticking out of his gut. Panic flashed through him. He knew knife wounds. Thomas had spoken about them often with him. Stabs in the abdomen weren’t good. He was probably bleeding out right now, surrounded by doctors, and this was just some kind of sick fantasy his mind was playing out to make him feel better about dying.

_If I really am dying_ , he thought, _then why does it still hurt so much?_

His hand – his right? – was suddenly crushed in a vice like grip.

“You’re awake! Oh my god, you’re awake…”

Marco knew that voice. His eyes flickered beneath their lids, bracing themselves. He could only open them a crack this time, the fuzzy sight of a hospital room slowly coming into focus. It was starched and white and clinical, the same place but just a different time, and as the room swam into focus he saw who was holding his hand.

Mikasa looked like a ghost. Her hair was lank and unwashed and her eyes were weighed down by fatigue. She could have been sat there for hours, or days. Marco wondered if she’d left since he’d been admitted, if she’d dared move in case something happened. He wondered, with horror, if she’d even let herself eat. But she was smiling down at him, her hand trembling on his, and the longer he looked at her, the harder she squeezed. She was tired and hungry and a little broken, but she was his Mikasa. It was enough to convince him he wasn’t hallucinating. He gave her hand a little squeeze back, and set his teeth at the pain that travelled up his arm at the simple movement.

She gave him a watery smile. “Hey there, take it easy,” she croaked. “You lost a lot of blood.” She sounded like a shadow of herself, the kind Marco had only seen a handful of times. He blinked slowly at her. He knew a cried-out voice when he heard one. “Don’t try to talk too much,” she added when he tried to open his mouth. “The doctor said it’ll be hard for a little while, the painkillers are still in your system and they could make you a bit loopy. Besides, she said if she had to hear you scream one more time she’d take your voicebox out.”

Marco frowned at her. _I screamed?_ He wanted to ask.

Mikasa nodded as if he’d spoken. “Yeah, mister hero, you screamed. A lot.”

Her voice still sounded faint, like she was teetering on the edge of crying again. Marco had only seen her cry a handful of times, and most of them were to do with him. A flutter of guilt appeared in his stomach but it died quickly with the ache he was met with. His body felt trapped in the aftershock of punches and kicks from the fight with Ymir’s gang, pain reverberating through him like he was hollow. There was a blood bag hooked onto a stand that made Marco sick to look at, and sicker still when he saw the needle going into the crook of his elbow and the drip feeding into the back of his hand. His veins were drinking everything they could with the desperation of someone famished. Marco turned back to Mikasa to take his mind off the dizziness. “How…?” was all he managed to rasp out. Even that was a struggle.

The grip on his hand grew gentle. “Very good doctors and a lot of luck,” she replied. “They’re surprised you managed to hang on. You’ve gone through so many of those blood bags I lost count.” She laughed, but it was the artificial kind that masked worry or panic or hysterical relief. Marco hoped it was relief. He really, really hoped it was relief. “It’s good to see you awake, Marco. You had me worried for a second.”

“You’re not…gonna…shout at me?” he asked, wincing as he tried to pull himself up.

Mikasa scoffed. “Not yet. It’s coming, trust me.”

He failed. As he sank back down into the pillow, his body cursing him to stop, he closed his eyes. “Mmph…look…forward…to it…”

He passed out.

* * *

The next few days were spent losing consciousness, grasping it, then letting go again. The doctors assured him it was a natural response to trauma. The dark would always look friendly to a fatigued body. It would get better, and he would be able to ride out longer periods without relying on morphine and painkillers. Marco wanted to make a quip about how his body was already falling apart, but he passed out halfway through the punchline and figured the doctors knew best.

Mikasa was right – luck had been on Marco’s side. The doctors seemed to feel the same way; abdominal wounds were not easy things to fix up, especially if internal organs got involved. By some miracle, the knife had missed any life threatening organs. It had lodged itself rather snugly, Marco was informed, in his appendix, but he never had been particularly fond of that part of him anyway. The doctors said he had a long way to go, but he would get there in time. He was grateful he would be walking out instead of being wheeled. _Eventually_ , he reminded himself. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Most of the rooms in Trost General Hospital were old friends to Marco. He’d stood in many of them with Thomas: during his diagnosis, his treatment, his counselling, his final hours. The place felt so haunted to him, so alive with memories of him. Marco had vowed they would never come to be filled with his own blood tests and needles and sickbeds – but he wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping that promise to himself. The room he had woken up in was a small one, and he would have called it ‘private’ if that weren’t such a laughable thought. It was probably Recovery - one of the only rooms Thomas hadn’t had the privilege of knowing. He was moved later into another ward, still private and spacious but less temporary. It felt like more of a lived in room, as opposed to a place you passed out in. Marco didn’t jinx it, despite the off-white walls and the constant noise of stress and rushing from the hallway beyond.

He got accustomed to it after a while; every inch of those off-white walls became familiar to him, from the little paint chip in the corner where a chair had been scraped against it by accident, to the almost silent squeak of the door when it was opened. Every time a doctor or nurse came to check on him, he asked when he could go home. He missed the apartment, cracks in the ceiling and all. He missed Sasha waking him up at a ridiculous hour to come listen to a stupid flower order she’d just received. He missed Batman twisting around his ankles and purring deeply when he got scratched in just the right spot. He missed the sound of life that usually filtered through and made everything so colourful. The hospital was cold and bloodless, just an inverted image of the alleyway. It made him feel sicker than he knew he was.

One thing that always changed was the small forest of plastic chairs assembled at the foot of his bed. Once he was allowed visitors, the chairs were almost always full of someone, be it a reassuring Armin, a silent Mikasa or an obnoxiously loud Sasha. Mikasa outranked the others, even the gently persuasive Armin. Eren was kept away (something to do with an outbreak of norovirus he could be susceptible to, Armin explained) but the reports from both Mikasa and Armin suggested he was slowly turning rabid in his desperation to get to the hospital.

Throughout Marco’s unbalanced seesaw of consciousness, however, there was one face who didn’t appear, one voice that didn’t ring out in the muggy confusion of days. Marco tried not to dwell on it too much, but it planted a rather poisonous seed in his mind. Jean wasn’t _going_ to come. He’d meant it. He needed space, and now he had it he didn’t want to come back. No matter how much Marco tried to uproot that lingering thought, it stayed there irritatingly close to the forefront of his mind.

Once he was awake for eighty percent of the time, the nurses couldn’t keep hold of the ‘two visitors at a time’ rule they’d fought so valiantly to keep in place. They had no choice but to let the mismatched rabble of young people sleeping in the corridor visit him in their hoards, and it just so happened that the norovirus threat started to become less serious. Eren was in the hospital within twenty minutes, despite the fact the journey from his building usually took him double that.

Marco was in the middle of talking to Sasha about a few things he wanted her to pick up from the apartment when Eren hurtled into the room like a kaleidoscopic hurricane. He pushed his way to the front of the group and ignored everyone else in the room, despite the angry splutters of Sasha and the amused titters of Connie. He stopped for a moment as he caught sight of Marco, and wobbled on his heels. Marco wondered what on earth he looked like to Eren, propped up to a sitting position by a small army of pillows and an assortment of tubes feeding things into his veins. Could Eren see that he was getting better, or could he see the impending sense of déjà vu coming over him?

Eren shuffled awkwardly, plunging his hands in his pockets and biting his lip. He was unsure. Some part of him clearly blamed himself. Marco gave him a tired smile that he hoped also looked reassuring, and Eren took the bait.

He took a running jump at the bed.

“EREN,” everyone shouted as Marco was knocked back into the pillows by the force of Eren’s leap.

He blinked up at him in his nest of pillows, wincing. “Ow! God, Eren, I still have a pain threshold!”

“Yeah, the guy still needs to breathe!” Connie said.

“Don’t want him dying for real on us, do we?” Sasha quipped.

Eren didn’t appear to have heard them. He flung his arms around Marco’s neck, squeezed him tight, and refused to let go. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner!” he wailed into his collar. “I’m s-sorry, I wanted to, you know I wanted to, I wasn’t staying away and I didn’t run away I swear I didn’t not this time I was at home waiting-”

Marco slung an arm around him and hugged him back, Eren’s rambling quickly devolving into wordless sobs. “It’s okay, Eren. I know,” he mumbled into Eren’s shaking shoulder. Eren just squeezed him harder and a rather stern looking nurse came in and prised him free.

“Honestly, if you can’t treat the patient gently you won’t be allowed in here at all!” she chided him.

Eren glowered at her like a punished child, but held back from throwing himself at Marco again. “I can’t believe you went off on one of your fucking crusades,” he said, once he’d calmed down.

Marco shrugged. “It was nothing, honestly. It wasn’t meant to go this far.”

“Understatement of the fucking century.”

“Eren’s got a point,” Sasha said, her face uncharacteristically serious. “We were all really worried about you.”

Marco wilted under their gazes. “I’m…sorry. I’m sorry, I just thought that…well I thought it would help.”

“If getting beaten up by some thugs and then getting stabbed counts as therapy I’m definitely not signing up for it,” Connie said, grinning despite himself.

Marco let a small smile out himself. “I know it sounds mad,” he said, “but I wasn’t really thinking straight. I was too worried about…” his voice trailed off. He’d almost forgotten. With a jolt of horror, he looked over to Eren.

In turn, Eren looked to Mikasa, who gave a sympathetic sort of shrug. “They saw your stats on your bed,” she said, looking slightly apologetic. “I couldn’t lie to them.”

Marco went cold. It was starting again, that same deadened feeling that crept through his body and scratched at his lungs like a cat waiting to be let inside. He hadn’t even thought about having to tell everyone; it had been bad enough telling two people. _They were going to abandon him_ , he thought miserably as he put his head in his hands. _They were just humouring him until he got better, and then they were going to leave. He was going to be on his own again. He would have to start all over again, start from scratch like he had with Thomas…_

“We don’t care.”

Marco looked up from his hands. Connie was the one who had spoken; he had an arm outstretched like he was trying to stop Marco’s rapidly pulsing panic by will alone. The fear that was bubbling up Marco’s throat lessened.

He shook his head despite himself, a sad smile wrung out of his lips. “Yes you do,” he said. “You’re just saying that because I’m actually conscious for once.”

“Uh, no I’m not. We don’t care.” Connie paused. “I mean, I don’t know about anyone else but I’m a little hurt you didn’t tell us.”

“But we’re more worried about you,” Sasha said, her brows slanted in a typical Sasha Pout that Marco knew so well. “You kept it to yourself all these years, Marco. You’ve known me for so long and…and you didn’t even think to tell me?”

Marco thought back to when he’d agreed on the lease with Sasha. The handshake that sealed the deal, with smiles and false hope and his pills well hidden in the bottom of his single lonely rucksack. He washed a hand over his face and sighed, trying to stop the prickle of emotion rising to the surface. How could he have not told her? How could he have thought that Sasha, lovely, optimistic, loony Sasha, would care about something like that?

He sniffed loudly. “I’m sorry.” Those words felt worn smooth on his tongue from use, but he meant them. “I didn’t want you to think less of me. I…I didn’t want to be someone that you had to look out for, because you all have your own problems, and getting HIV was my own fault, and…”

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down,” Sasha said, crossing the room to his bedside and squeezing his hand. “Marco, why on earth would we think less of you?”

Marco heard a derisive snort from the right. “Yeah, Eren’s got HIV and it didn’t change him. He’s still the same annoying shit as always.”

Eren rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Marlow.”

“Being HIV positive doesn’t define you,” Sasha said, ignoring the vicious hand gestures Eren and Marlow brandished at one another. “It’s just… a really small part of you. As for fucking up, we’re ones to talk aren’t we? I mean,” she pointed at her stomach, “I got pregnant by accident. Connie,” she pointed, “is studying with nineteen year olds and hating life, and Marlow,” she pointed again, “can’t get into the police no matter how hard he tries.”

“Alright Sash’, that’s enough,” Marlow grumbled.

Sasha ignored him. “You see?” she said brightly. She practically perched herself in Marco’s lap, her swollen belly pressing against his side. “We all make choices that change our lives. We do it all the time! But you, big man,” she chucked him under the chin, “you didn’t give up, even when you found out what you had. You just picked yourself up and carried on. That’s… really impressive. I wouldn’t be able to do something like that.”

Marco scoffed. He thought back to the day on the bridge, with the tears and the pill pot and those eyes, those penetrating, betrayed eyes…

“I’m not strong,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment to gather himself. He opened them again with a shuddering sigh. “You have… no idea… how often I wanted to give up.” He looked down at his hands, still bruised and connected to wires and tubing. They throbbed dully now, just to remind him they were there.

“Well you have a strange way of showing that,” Sasha said, “considering you’re still led here talking to us.”

Marco gave a small, painful laugh. It didn’t last long, and sounded a little raspy at the end, but it felt good. It spread an ounce of warmth through his chest, and melted the anxiety that lingered there. “I guess so,” he said.

“You don’t guess so, you _know_ so,” Connie corrected.

Marco tried out another laugh, and found it didn’t catch in his throat quite so much on the second attempt. “Fine, fine, I know so.”

Sasha beamed at him. “C’mere, you big lug.”

Before Marco knew what was happening, he was being swept up in a group hug, all five of them pressing around him and curling in close. Even Marlow, jerky and awkward and out of his depth, accepted the contact for a minute longer than he usually did. Marco felt the tears welling to the surface again, but this time it was for different reasons. Possibly good reasons. “Thank you,” he mumbled to them all. “Thank you so much.”

Marco knew he had to talk to Eren. He had to see if the half asleep exchange they’d had held actual weight, and wasn’t just the lack of sleep talking. He knew it had to wait until the others were gone, and by the looks Eren kept casting him, he knew it too. So they waited. Eren let Sasha fuss and Marlow brood and Connie ask inappropriate questions. When the room finally cleared at the end of the day, Eren held back like Marco wanted him to. None of the others questioned it as they left, merely throwing Marco passing farewells and promises to be back soon.

And then it was just the two of them.

Eren picked at the threads in his violently turquoise sweater, brows furrowed and lip jutting out in preoccupied thought, and let himself meet Marco’s eye after the door squeaked shut. It wasn’t tension that hung in the air between them, but Eren’s gaze still made it hard for Marco to breathe.

He cleared his throat. “The nurses will kick you out if they find you,” he said. “Visiting hours are finishing soon.”

Eren’s eyes became fierce. “I’d like to see them try.”

“Eren, please.” Marco huffed, knowing it was futile, and glanced to the left. He squinted. “I miss being able to see outside. Are you walking home?”

Eren shook his head. “Armin’s picking me up. It’s pissing it down out there. You’re not missing much.”

Marco chuckled weakly. Eren chuckled too.

Silence.

“Is this fucking weird to you?” Eren said finally.

Marco smiled. “Kind of.”

“It’s fucking weird to me.” Eren chewed a corner of his lips and took a few more steps. Marco expected him to sink into the chair nearest his bed, the one that Mikasa tended to commandeer for herself, but Eren ignored it completely and sat on the bed itself. Marco blinked at him. “How are you holding up? Really?” Eren asked, and there it was. The other Eren, the softer Eren, the one Marco had to scrape off pavements far too many times to keep count. There wasn’t a shred of humour in his voice now.

As Eren’s hand touched his, Marco noticed that it was shaking. Badly. “Eren…” he began.

“You said you never wanted to be back here,” Eren said, his eyes firmly fixed on their hands. “You said… after Thomas… you didn’t want to step foot in a hospital again. You didn’t want to know every hallway and waiting room the way you did with him. And now look at you.” He laughed humourlessly. “There’s karma for you. If only I’d stopped you running after fucking Ymir…”

“Eren, this isn’t your fault.”

Eren’s eyes slid shut. The hand not holding Marco’s was still wrapped tight in his sweatshirt sleeve, but Marco didn’t have to see it to know it was white-knuckled with tension. Eren didn’t like hospitals. He could just about handle clinics, but hospitals, especially hospitals that held Marco inside… those were not good places for him to be. Marco turned his hand to thread their fingers together and tried out a smile that was more comforting than sad. “It is not your fault,” he repeated.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I won’t beat myself up about it for a few more days,” Eren retorted.

Marco frowned. How long had Eren been milling this over? “I was the one who went running out into the night, not you,” he said.

Eren scrubbed at the corner of his eye, mumbling something intelligible about ‘hayfever’ that Marco didn’t believe for one minute. “Why did you do it, Marco?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Why did you do it? Did I really hurt you that much? Did Jean?”

_Jean._ Even the name sent another steel blade through Marco’s stomach. He let his hand fall loose from Eren’s, and turned his face away. It wasn’t as though he’d forgotten about Jean – how could he? – but he had managed to nudge him to one side, file him away for a time where he could stop focusing on the drugs that were being pumped into him and the dull ache from the swathing of bandages around his middle. But now it all came back, knocking his coping mechanism back two blocks and leaving it twitching in the dirt. Jean’s crooked, self-conscious smile. His eyes like tiny universes. His cracked lips that Marco wanted nothing but to smooth over. The way he sat, talked, laughed, cried, his scent, his voice, his ragged, pale body – it all rushed upon Marco so fast he had to squeeze his eyes tight to fend it off. Then came the memories from the bridge.

He quickly opened his eyes again. “Yes,” he croaked. “Yes, it…hurt. Still does.”

It wasn’t the reason he left. He’d left because someone needed him. He had to help. Eren could see that as he peered over him, rubbing small circles in his side – he didn’t have to say it.

“Do you want me to talk to Armin?” Eren asked, though from the little wrinkle in his brow the thought left a bad taste in his mouth.

“No.” Marco closed his eyes again. “Armin’s not his babysitter. He’s his own person. He can do what he likes.”

Eren didn’t seem too impressed by Marco’s answer, but he was gracious enough to let any comments slide. “What happened? When you told him?” he asked instead.

Marco wanted to be able to roll over more, eclipse himself from Eren’s curious gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Eren paused. For a moment, Marco thought he was going to demand answers anyway, but then the bed creaked horrendously and he felt the warmth of a body beside him. “Okay,” Eren said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m… I’m glad you’re alright, I was so fucking scared…”

Marco turned over. Eren was rubbing his eyes, trying furiously not to make it too obvious. Eren had lost one of the most important people in his life in this hospital, and he hadn’t even been there to mourn. This time must have felt like a nightmare; every command in his head telling him to bolt like before, but a stronger resolve keeping him rooted to the ground. No wonder he’d barely slept.

Ignoring the slight snag of the tubes in his hands, and knowing it would inevitably cause a nurse to come running, Marco reached out a hand and brushed away some of Eren’s hair. “Eren, ssshhh. It’s alright. I’m here.” The same words he’d used so often when they were younger and Eren was on a bad comedown. Eren was remembering it too, for Marco saw him visibly relax. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and meant it. “I was scared too, you know. Who’d look after a little tinkerbell like you, eh?”

Eren sniffled at the pet name. “Suck-up,” he muttered.

“It’s true, don’t you deny it.” He scratched his nails against Eren’s scalp and ran his fingers through the thick, dark hair. It was greasy and unwashed, but Marco didn’t care. Mikasa and Eren clearly shared the same neglectful routine. “You’re a good person, you know.” Eren went pink at his words, and burrowed his face into his chest in answer. “It’s true!” Marco laughed gently. “You are a good person. For caring. For coming here, even though you were so scared of what you’d find. You’re a lot braver than you give yourself credit for.” He rested his chin on top of Eren’s head and listened to Eren’s flustered noises. “What, you didn’t think you were? You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, and that’s not going to change any time soon.”

Eren relaxed, and moved away to look up at him. His face was still flushed. “Too late for declarations of love now, Bodt,” he said, with a smile tinged with something Marco couldn’t pinpoint. “I am a taken man.”

Marco shifted away to stare at him. Eren nodded in answer to the silent question, biting his lip through a smile. He looked giddy, like a child at Christmas. “You and Armin?” he asked, just to be sure.

“Me and Armin,” Eren nodded, barely able to keep his smile from turning into a broad, excitable grin. “We’re taking it slow, but Armin asked me on a date this weekend. A proper date. Not just a going-around-his-and-binge-watching-90210 date.”

Marco wanted to be Eren at that moment, glowing with the anticipation of arms around him and gentle kisses and date nights. He quashed the jealousy with a bright smile. Shoved the thought of Jean down even further. “Wow,” he grinned.

“I know.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks. And if Kirschtein knows what’s good for him, he’ll come visit soon.”

“ ** _Eren_**.”

“Sorry.”

Marco didn’t register the nurse bustling in and angrily squawking at Eren to leave; it was a haze of Eren complaining loudly and the nurse shrieking that he would wake up the other patients with his noise. Marco wanted to mention that the nurse had already done a good job of that herself, but sleep fast overtook his mouth.

* * *

It was true that he could avoid thoughts of Jean whilst he was awake, but his subconscious was a wide playing field, and Jean could wander about it freely.

That night Marco dreamt of spring days, of waking up tangled in Jean’s blankets and bedsheets on the futon and reaching over to plant kisses against a bristly jawline. He dreamt of teaching Claudine how to walk, encouraging her on and cheering when she eventually toddled three steps then flopped facedown against Jean’s knees. His mind had it all for him; cruelly showing him daily kisses, afternoon walks, midnight touches. Marco craved them like nothing else, wanted nothing more than to live that way– no HIV, no lack of money, no fear of the outdoors or of the future to come, just the three of them. Together. It wasn’t a complicated wish.

Marco caught himself hoping that the thin threads of dream could be woven into something real someday. Although, with a slight crease in his brow as the dreams faded and the ache in his stomach returned, it was unlikely.

“God, you really are a sucker if you’re saying his name in your sleep.”

Marco’s eyes snapped open.

It was morning. And perched on his bed, all lilac hair and dark roots, was Hitch.

She gave him that same mildly interested look as he realised he was no longer dreaming. “Gotta say that’s inappropriate, handsome. I’d say having morning glory in a hospital is almost as bad as jerking it in church,” Hitch practically purred at him as he struggled to sit up. He yelped as pain shot through his body, and contented himself with lying on his back, glaring up at her. He didn’t like not being able to move when Hitch was in a room with him. Despite his glare, she gave him a lazy smile and winked.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” he hissed.

“Shush, _handsome_ ,” Hitch chided, casting a fervent look over her shoulder. “They might not be as accommodating if they thought you didn’t want me here.” She crossed one leg over the other and offered him one of her best feline smiles. She had a newspaper jammed under her arm, a bag slung over her shoulder and clothes that suggested she was on her way to work. The black pinafore dress she was wearing was clinging to every curve and wave in her body, and the blouse underneath floated elegantly whenever she moved. But as she turned to face him a little more, foot bobbing, the jealousy came crawling back.

“I don’t want you here,” Marco said coldly.

This was Claudine’s mother, the person who cheated on Jean and made him leave. She’d messed with his head and left him on his own. She caused their argument. She ruined people. Marco was not going to be her latest casualty.

Hitch’s mouth twisted in what he assumed was meant to be a comforting look. It felt too mocking for that. “After I came all this way, lied to the morning nurses about being your girlfriend and brought you grapes?” she gestured to a bag, half eaten but definitely grapes, nestled against his hip. Marco stared at them. “They’re not poisoned,” Hitch added, twirling a finger around her hair, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Marco glowered at her. She was smaller than he remembered, more delicate. The confidence exuding off her was starting to disappear, the cocky swing to her leg more of a nervous tic and her eyes, beautiful and dazed as they were, kept flicking around the room as if she was mortified someone would see her. Marco bit his lip through the pain and struggled to sit up, succeeding only when he was breathing heavily and trying to counteract the searing pain his body was dealing him. Hitch didn’t move.

“How did you know I was here?”

Hitch shrugged. “News travels fast.” She unfolded the newspaper under her arm and let it flop open to the headline. The words ‘NAMELESS HERO LIES IN HOSPITAL: ASSAILANT CHARGED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER’ screamed out at him. Marco blanched. “Not exactly a snappy headline, but once I saw the picture there was no denying it was you.”

There was a small picture of him in the centre of the article – but it wasn’t the Marco lying in a hospital bed. The journalist had done some digging. The Marco smiling out of the page was a younger, short haired version with big doe eyes and ears that stuck out endearingly. It was a Marco who didn’t know what last kisses tasted like.

Marco blinked. “They used my university ID?” he blurted.

Hitch, to his surprise, laughed. “Everything that’s happened to you and you got beef with the picture they chose for you?” When Marco said nothing, she took the newspaper and curled it over her hands, her nails the same dusky lilac as her hair, and began to read.

“‘ _Trost city council has been in talks with constabulary over an incident involving a member of the Maruseru gang earlier this month. The gang has been at large on our streets for a number of years, but none have ever been apprehended by officers. This changed when, on the night in question, fights broke out and members taken by surprise in a police operation.’_ Wait, wait, that isn’t the good part, you’re a little further down…”

She let the paper slip between her fingers as she read, and Marco noticed her leg shaking even more enthusiastically.

“Aha, here we are! ‘ _Marco Bodt, 25, is a known individual to Trost Constabulary, and known for his antagonistic attitude towards officers and obstruction of justices throughout our noble city. During an altercation, Bodt stepped in to defend the life of police constable Daz Stimfield, 27, and was tragically struck down by the very knife he’d been attempting to take from one Boris Feulner.’_ I mean, I knew you were a hero, Handsome, but that last part got me curious.”

Marco’s gaze fell back onto her. Hitch was chewing her lip, looking him up and down like he was a particularly interesting piece of furniture. Marco didn’t like being looked at like that. The awkwardness didn’t take long to fade into something steely.

“So what,” he said, scowling at her, “you thought you’d pop by before work to see if I really was dead?”

Hitch folded the paper up again, unfazed by his anger. “Sorta. Not just anyone could stand off against a member of the Maruseru gang and come out unharmed. Seems you came out with a hole in your stomach, but not much else. Sort of a pity, in a way.” She sighed. “Haven’t been to a good funeral in a long time.”

Marco’s expression darkened. “Sorry to hear you won’t be able to get out a little black dress and pretend to look upset. Must be gutting for you.”

Hitch either didn’t catch the malice dripping in his tone, or she chose to ignore it, but she sighed again and patted his hand in a placating, sympathetic manner. “Oh, not at all, Sugar. Means I can put someone’s mind at rest.”

All thoughts of when best to strangle Hitch vanished. “J-Jean?” he asked, the name breaking halfway out of his lips. “J-Jean, you’ve seen Jean?” He couldn’t let the hope flutter to the surface. He couldn’t let it swell and grow and breathe life into the dead matter living in his chest. He just couldn’t. But why then did it come back, creeping stealthily in and filling him with a lighter, warmer feeling?

Hitch didn’t answer. Her head snapped around at the sound of movement coming from the hallway beyond, her eyes narrowed, and Marco couldn’t help but think of Claudine. She was still only a baby, but even now some of her expressions were tiny versions of her mother – particularly her look of disgust. “I have to go,” Hitch said, her voice a little strained. “There was some lady outside screeching at the nurses. She looks ready to explode, I ain’t sticking around for that. Happy place, hospitals.” She stood up and gestured at the grapes. “Eat up, handsome. I hear they’re good for you.”

“Hitch.” Marco let his voice grow cold again, so much so that Hitch actually _winced._ “Why did you come here? Really?” His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you ruin enough last time?”

Hitch rolled her eyes. “Ugh, why do all men presume that I want to fuck with them?”

“Probably your personality.”

Hitch considered this. Then she shrugged. “Eh, probably.” She dropped the newspaper beside the grapes, straightened the creases in her pinafore, and turned to walk away.

As she reached the door, Marco couldn’t help himself. He blurted out, “Is he okay? Jean, is he… is he okay, is he alright?”

Hitch stopped. She turned back, chewing her lip again, and Marco’s frown doubled. Hitch’s next words were soft and unsure. “Marco, I don’t know what he told you about us, but I’m sure what he did say I deserved.” She gripped the edge of the door as if to steady herself, before mumbling, “Jean deserved better than me. I couldn’t help him the way he wanted me to. We were just kids, and kids make stupid mistakes. God, I was eighteen when I got pregnant, for god’s sake.” She bit her lip so sharply it drew blood. “If I could go back and do it again, I would. I didn’t want to hurt him, never hurt him, but… that’s what I ended up doing. I’m not proud of it.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

Hitch sighed. “I’m not asking you to believe me or forgive me, Sugar. I sure as hell wouldn’t forgive me. I know I’m a bitch, and I’m the one who has to live with that.” She shrugged as though it was something a person admitted all the time. “But… but you have to know that Jean and I were never, and will never, be an item. Not again.”

Marco felt the steel leave him. It was replaced by a ticklish confusion. “But… but the party,” he said. “The dancing, the… the not telling your parents you’d split…”  

Hitch shrugged. “Da’ has a dicky heart. Didn’t want to finish him off just yet, he’s not nearly as rich as he wants to be.” She gripped the edge of the door with her nails, clearly eager to get away. “Jean has a lot of hare-brained schemes, but none of ‘em ever work. I wasn’t gonna fuck him, handsome, and I wasn’t gonna marry him either. I just thought you should know that, for… you know, peace of mind. It’s just… nice to know that you care enough to ask how _he’s_ feeling, when you’re the one in a hospital bed.”

Marco gawped at her, unable to say a single thing. It was like all the poison he wanted to spit at her had been milked out of him.

Hitch seemed to take this as an opportunity to leave. She gave him a curt, formal little nod and slipped away out of the door. _Maybe_ , Marco thought as he followed the bouncing, hurried outline of Hitch through the frosted panes of his window, _just maybe, Hitch wasn’t as heinous a bitch as he’d made her out to be._ One flick of her hair at the end of the corridor and she was gone, around a corner of the hospital and out into the maze of stairwells. Marco leant back into his pillows, ignoring the pain that thrummed through him like an electric charge, and ran a hand through his hair, thinking. Hitch had walked out on Jean – no, no _Jean_ had walked out on _Hitch_ , but only after Hitch had cheated on him. Hitch had cheated. Hitch had called Jean broken. That was what Marco had to focus on, the fact that Hitch was a callous and calculating girl who preyed on innocent –

_But was she?_

She had never given him any reason to suspect that she was some sort of modern day femme fatale. All he had to go by was Jean; Jean’s reaction to her, the placating way he told Marco that maybe Hitch had changed, maybe she’d grown up…

_Eighteen. She had been eighteen when she’d gotten pregnant with Claudine._

Marco pinched the bridge of his nose and willed the looming headache to leave him in peace. Hitch and Jean had been kids – stupid kids, according to Hitch – and kids did even more stupid things to get back at each other. It didn’t excuse her, not by a long shot… but Marco could at least understand, by some degree, where she was coming from. Both of them were scared. Fear was a strange kind of creature for everyone.  

The argument that was going on outside in the corridor was reaching its crescendo. Marco turned his head to listen, realising with a sigh that there was no wall thick enough to block out the volume and fire of the shouts. It was impossible to ignore, piercing through the walls of his room as though the two people were standing inside with him.

“Please, ma’am, it’s not visiting hours yet,” he heard a nurse complain, her clipped professionalism slipping as she tried to speak over incoherent yelling. “You’ll have to wait until-”

The fiery, indignant voice rang around his room in reply, bouncing off the walls before its owner got anywhere near close enough. “That’s a lie and you know it, missy! I saw that girl walk out of there! I have my rights! I am going in that room and that is final! I bet you haven’t even given him white willow bark…”

Marco froze. Now he was paying attention, that voice sounded familiar. Eerily familiar. It was a woman’s voice, older and slightly screechy, but there was a power behind it that Marco knew tended to get its own way.

“Ma’am, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Did you hear that, Emil? Did you _hear_ that?!”

There was only one Emil Marco knew.

Emil _Wagner._

Thomas’s father.

“Now dear,” a softer, placating voice interjected, “the nurses know what they’re doing. They’ve trained long and hard to work here and maybe we should come back when he’s stronger-”

“Don’t toady to them Emil, for goodness’ sake!” the woman cried. “This is typical _you,_ just like the Belarus incident of 1972…”

Every pint of blood that had been replaced into Marco’s body felt like it was draining away again, swirling down in some kind of sinkhole in the pit of his stomach. Thomas’s parents were striding down the corridor, shouting at nurses and trying to get in to see him. How on earth did they know he was here? He looked to the paper Hitch had left on the chair, and huffed. Of course. The paper.

Marco sat frozen in bed, half terrified. They were going to come in. There was no escape. He wondered, wildly, if there was a chance he could make a run for it, but shook away the thought with a frown. They wouldn’t want to see him for any good reason, surely. He wasn’t even sure what he could say. What was there _to_ say?

Swinging the door open with surprising strength for a small wild haired woman in her mid 50s, Hyacinth Wagner burst into the room like a hurricane, her taller and despairing husband ambling behind like an ageing Labrador retriever. She was wearing a thick woollen poncho that flapped around her like it was planning on taking off, the strings of beads swinging from her neck and wrists almost hitting Emil Wagner in the face as he tried to put a calming hand on her shoulder. Hyacinth stopped dead at the sight of Marco, and Marco stopped breathing.

She looked the same. Oh god, she looked exactly the same. She still had the same curly hair down to her waist, though it was a little greyer now, and the same mischievously bright eyes that gave light to any room she entered. Those beady eyes were locked on him, and only him, and Marco found himself shying away from her gaze. What was she thinking, he wondered, as she looked at her dead son’s ex-boyfriend, stuck in a hospital bed looking tired and scared? Was she scared too? Sad? Resentful, that he hadn’t written to her? Marco wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. He braced himself. Hyacinth’s shoulders gave a great heave. He waited.

“Marco! My _boy!_ ”

Before he knew what was happening, Hyacinth had swept him up in her arms and crushed him close to her small, creaky body. She had a musky, nutmeg kind of smell that reminded Marco painfully of Thomas, and as she squeezed around him he nearly choked. “Oh, my boy, my poor sweet boy,” she was crowing, stroking the bits of his hair she hadn’t squashed against her chest. “You’ve been so brave, sweetheart, so very brave. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

Marco couldn’t speak. He couldn’t stop himself from hugging her back, and hugging her tight. He chased that soft, nutmeggy comfort she seemed to exude and buried his head against the crook of her neck. An overwhelming sense of relief came over him. It wasn’t a feeling he got very often; it was a relief that meant he could relax, that he was in safe hands, that he didn’t have to pretend anymore. It was an odd feeling. He’d managed to forget, in the mist of grief, what being loved like this felt like. Because she did love him, he realised now as she murmured soothing words into his ear and rocked him gently from side to side. She loved him more than she could bear, even if there was nothing but a ghost holding them together. Marco thought it wouldn’t be enough, but Hyacinth very obviously begged to differ.

“That’s it, let it all out, it’s okay,” she soothed, her voice suddenly soft and warm. It was the kind of voice mothers reserved for singing lullabies, and Marco was about to ask what she meant until he let out a gulping sob, and knew why. His relief was turning to tears. So he listened to her, and did what he’d wanted to do since waking up from the hospital.

He cried. He sobbed. He wailed.

He cried until her poncho was sodden, cried as her fingers combed through his hair and cried even as she pressed a shaky kiss to his cheek and made soft hushing noises in his ear. He cried because he’d been so scared of dying, and so happy to still be alive. He cried because he’d missed her, and still missed her son. He cried because Jean hadn’t come, and might not ever come. He just cried, without trying to stop himself. And Hyacinth let him.

In the last dying dregs of hiccoughs and sniffles, Marco could feel Hyacinth’s fingers winding his hair around her fingers carefully. He let her do it for a while, revelling in the attention, before he mumbled, “M’okay now. Sorry.”

“You are for now,” she said, “but you’ll feel bad again later. That’s alright. It’ll pass. And don’t ever apologise for being emotional, don’t be a slave to the patriarchy. Boys can cry just as much as girls can.” She tapped him on the nose sharply to finalise her point.

Marco stared at both of them in turn, from the earnest Hyacinth to the gently smiling Emil. “Wh-what are you both doing here?” he asked.

“We’re here to see you, of course! Silly goose, where else do you think we’d be?” she kissed the side of his head and held him tight. “We were on the road as soon as we heard. We weren’t going to let you sit in here all alone.”

Marco lifted his head up to look at her. She was smiling down at him, her own cheeks carved with tear tracks. He felt awful, knowing that she was crying over him when he hadn’t even sent so much as a ‘thank you’ after Christmas. He didn’t deserve her tears. He gulped at the threat of his own peaking the surface again, itching on his lashes. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say, the words thick and heavy. “I’m sorry I didn’t write o-or call… it was just…”

Hyacinth’s hand stilled in his hair. “I know. It was hard. We didn’t want to push too much, not until you were ready, but I was just terrified you thought we hated you. After the funeral, you looked so guilty, like… like it was your fault.”

Marco swallowed painfully and nodded. He had blamed himself. He could have bullied Thomas into going to the doctor sooner. He could have gone on his own terms, and not just as an afterthought when it was too late. Marco could have insisted they used protection, not just gone along with things in the heat of the moment. He could have told Thomas he had HIV too…

He fisted his hands in her poncho, and stilled his breathing. “I had a lot of things to work out,” he said, still fighting to keep his voice from shattering.

“We understand, sweetheart.” Hyacinth smiled again, and this time it was a real smile, a sunny smile, the kind she’d reserved only for him and Thomas. “We’re not mad.” Her head shot up to her husband. “Are we, Emil?”

“No,” he said. “Not at all.” Emil was a man of few words – a wise choice really, when living with someone like Hyacinth.

“See? Perfectly fine. Now, enough of that. We can talk properly later. Let me take a look at you.” She stood an arm’s length away and took Marco’s face in her hands, the large assortment of rings on her fingers sending a thrill of cold to Marco’s cheeks. “My, my, you’ve grown up handsome!” she crowed. “Don’t you think so, Emil? Isn’t Marco handsome?”

“Very handsome,” Emil agreed. “Our boy had good taste.”

“He got that from my side of the family.” Hyacinth added. “Good judges of character, my family.”

Emil made a face. “I picked you, didn’t I?”

“Keep believing that, love.” Hyacinth was still peering at Marco, turning his face this way and that like she was decoding it. Marco bit back a smile as she traced the scar on his eyebrow and tutted at ‘boys being boys’ and let the smile blossom as she gave his hair a little tug.

“You’ve let your hair grow out,” Hyacinth observed. “I like it. Very bohemian.”

Marco let his smile break through. “Glad you approve.”

“I mean, obviously it needs a bit of neatening up, but it’s nothing a good pair of scissors won’t fix.”

He chuckled. “Of course.”

Shuffling out of his embrace, Hyacinth ducked down to rifle through her bag that, Marco realised, had been flung aside in her haste to reach him. “Now, before I forget, I brought this special.” Marco blinked, wondering what on earth she had tucked away, until a small green tin was pushed under his nose. “White willow bark,” she noted, “good for pain relief. Better than some of the toxins they pump you with in here, at least.”

Marco’s nose wrinkled as he opened the tin and found actual shards of bark rattling about inside. “Y-you’re too kind,” he said. “What do I do with it?”

Hyacinth looked at him as though he’d asked what his own name was. “You chew it.”

“Ah.”

“I want to see you chew some.”

Marco peered close at them and made a face. “It looks nasty.”

Hyacinth’s face darkened. “Chew some.” It didn’t sound like a request.

Marco put a few splinters of wood in his mouth and fought the urge to spit it straight back out. As he crunched the bark between his teeth, Hyacinth dragged one of the chairs closer to his bedside, and Emil followed suit. They were both staring at him with a sort of earnest anticipation, the kind Marco didn’t get from just anyone. They looked like they wanted to ask him questions, but were unsure of how to begin. He had plenty of questions for them, too. The silence that fell between his mildly disgusted chewing and the sounds of the hospital waking up around them were comfortable, however; Marco never failed to feel at ease in the presence of Thomas’s parents, no matter what situation he found himself in.

When he finally spat out the remnants of chewed up twig with a grimace, Hyacinth spoke up. “Have your parents visited at all?”

Marco laughed bitterly. Something that would have once made him cold with shame and guilt now just lay dead in the back of his mind. “That’s a joke,” he snorted, still rolling his tongue around his mouth in a bid to fend off the vile aftertaste the bark had given him.

“Bastards,” Hyacinth grunted. When Emil looked affronted, she whirled on him. “Well, they are! Rotten bastards, leaving him like this!”

“Don’t hold it against them,” Marco said wearily. “I wasn’t exactly the son they expected to have.”

“No,” Hyacinth replied fiercely, “you’re better. Tsk, do you hear that Emil? Not seeing him after he’s been in here for a week now, the bloody bastards, it’s enough to make you weep…” She laid her hand on Marco’s again and squeezed. “Don’t you worry sweetheart, Emil will get us checked into a hotel-”

“I will?”

“- and we will stay with you as long as you want us.”

Marco felt his face warm with the weight of the blush riding on it. At least he had enough blood in his body _to_ blush, now. He glanced from Emil, who was wordlessly pulling out a phone and dialling the number of the nearest hotel, to Hyacinth as she stroked his hand with her thumb. These two people had lost a son when Marco had lost a partner. They had seen Thomas grow, nourished and encouraged him, sent him off to university and welcomed his shy, worrisome boyfriend into their family with open arms. They had been there right alongside Marco when Thomas had his hospital visits, when he needed extra help, if Marco just needed to get away from it all for a few hours. They had always been in the background, in their letters and Christmas cards. All they wanted, all they had ever wanted, was to be there for him.

Marco was used to doing things on his own. He had been happy to snip the already fraying threads tied tight around him and step out alone, forgetting that he ever had to answer to anyone. There had been a thrill to it at first, the sudden realisation that he could do _anything_ he wanted, that he was his own person and he wasn’t held down by expectations. But once the novelty wore off, it was lonely. Maybe he was used to doing things alone, but that didn’t mean he _had_ to. He bit his lip. The tears were starting again, building in a roar behind his eyes. He blinked to try to clear them, but it was no use.

“Can you just… never leave?” he asked quietly. “That would be great.”

Hyacinth and Emil glanced at one another, smiled, and looked back to him. Hyacinth nodded vigorously, her beads and jewellery jangling together like wind chimes as she blinked back more tears. “We can do that,” she sniffed, gripping his hand so tight it was becoming painful. “Of course we can do that, we’d… we’d love to.”

“We’ve missed you, Marco,” Emil added, his voice soft and his smile so painfully like Thomas’s. “It’s hard being a stranger to a lad like you. You’re something special.”

“We love you, sweetheart.” Hyacinth reached over and planted a small kiss on Marco’s forehead. When she came away, the spot tingled. “We always will.” The rest of the sentence hung in the air above them. They all knew what Hyacinth was going to say.

_Just like he did._

And in that moment, as the Wagners sat around his bed and hugged him and promised him they would come back every day, Marco believed them.

* * *

For the first time since he’d woken up in hospital, Marco felt like himself. He wasn’t sure if it was the drugs, or the fact that his blood levels were returning to normal, but a weight that had been holding his chest down was lifted, and he stopped dreading his progress reports. The nurses smiled more now as they redressed his wound. The doctors made jokes with him as they made their rounds. Everyone seemed more optimistic, and Marco was glad of it.

The police wanted to talk to him – they always did – but to Marco’s surprise, they didn’t arrive to arrest him. Daz had spoken to his sergeant, and even twisted police looked out for their own. The sergeant in question, a twitchy bearded stone slab of a man called Weilman, looked very unhappy at having to let Marco off with another greying smudge on his record and a tap on the wrist, but he couldn’t deny that if Marco hadn’t stepped in, his officer would be the one in a hospital bed or a morgue. Being bent, apparently, had its uses.

Daz even came to visit, looking odd out of uniform and wringing his hands as Marco inspected the flowers he’d brought with him. “I h-h-hope you’re not allergic,” he wheedled nervously. “I just th-th-thought that’s what you do, for people getting better, y’know?”

Getting better. Those words sounded nice floating in the air, instead of the usual ‘stable’. Marco had smiled and offered him a grape, which Daz awkwardly accepted. When Marco had said he would make a good officer one day, Daz very nearly burst into tears.

‘Getting better’, however, was not synonymous with ‘feeling better’. Marco’s body groaned and creaked as the pieces knitted themselves back together, stitches healed and pills were taken. His veins no longer burned with a lust for blood to fill them, though they liked to remind him with every blood test that their lack of T cells were threat enough. He was far more lucid and soon became able to leave his bed (to the chagrin of his nurses) and pad around his small, painfully private room. He wondered if the Wagners were helping to fund such a privilege, but knew they wouldn’t tell him if they were. He paced the length of the room and back again just because he could, and snuck glances out of the window he’d not been able to see in his bed at a world rattling by without him. It was comforting, in a way, to know that the world didn’t just stop.

The Wagners visited daily, and tried their best to make him comfortable even when ‘getting better’ felt worse than getting hurt in the first place. But Marco saw the way Hyacinth wouldn’t be able to conceal her panic fast enough if he winced or coughed particularly badly. He noticed how Emil would grab onto Hyacinth’s shoulder like a life raft when the nurses came to change his bandage and reveal the cruel little knife wound. He saw Thomas’s ghost reflected in both of them, and realised that they were hurting right along with him. Caring did things like that.

Mikasa had brought him his phone charger two days previously, and even though he’d plugged it in and got his battery bar looking healthier than it had done in weeks, it stayed silent as the grave. There had been a barrage of missed calls, voicemails and texts from Mikasa in the beginning, left over from the night he’d disappeared and before she knew where he was, but once they were acknowledged as ‘read’ by his phone, there was nothing else. The blank screen mocked Marco for days, refusing to give so much as a glimmer of hope.

Nothing came. Nothing at all.

Marco tried to shake off the feeling that the person he really wanted to hear from knew he was in the hospital, but hadn’t come. Hitch had probably told him by now. Jean could be sat in a cold apartment with empty canvases and a crying baby and not realise just how close Marco had come. Perhaps he did know – perhaps he’d read the paper before Hitch had. Perhaps he didn’t care. That thought rested heavily on Marco’s mind, squatting there without a hint of leaving. Maybe Jean wouldn’t come. Marco hated how alone that made him feel.

Having the Wagners meet his friends was something that kept his mind off that particularly ugly thought. Mikasa and Eren already knew them, of course; Eren was swept up in a similar riptide to Marco, kisses rained upon his face from Hyacinth and great claps on the back from Emil. When they met Armin and were told that he was taking Eren out on a date, Hyacinth squealed like a teenage girl and hugged them both close to her bosom. “I’m so proud of you!” she blubbed at Eren, ruffling his hair so much he started to protest loudly. “Going on dates with lovely, wholesome young men and not those thuggish scoundrels you used to fawn over!”

Eren protested even louder at this. “Hyacinth, Armin doesn’t want to know that!” he spluttered, wriggling in her grip.

“It’s rather nice to be called ‘wholesome’,” Armin admitted, a little shaken by all the affection but laughing nonetheless. “It’s not something I’m usually called.”

“Oh, aren’t you a gentleman?” she cooed, squeezing Eren tighter to her bosom. “Listen to that, Eren? Armin’s going to teach you some manners and he’s so clever too, what with his phD studying. Always good to have intelligent conversation in a relationship, Emil and I swear by it. And you,” she added, pointing to Armin, “you’re a lucky boy! Eren here’s a little firecracker and so intelligent too! Why, you should see his botanical drawings-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH.”

“Botanical drawings?” Armin blinked. “Eren likes botany?”

“Oh yes, he’s fabulous at it,” Hyacinth said, thoroughly ignoring Eren’s wails of distress. “He used to have quite the little greenhouse in his university dorm room, do you remember sweetheart? Oh, how Thomas used to complain about the soil and the sapling clippings! He’s full of surprises, is our Eren!”

“Well, that’s what made me fall for him,” Armin replied, smiling brighter than Marco had ever seen him smile. Eren’s wails were swiftly cut off by gurgles of gratitude.

Marco wasn’t surprised to find that Hyacinth took a particular shine to Sasha, and spent many hours fussing over her bump and offering her advice on impending motherhood. “You know, I had Thomas when I was young,” Hyacinth smiled, “and I know how scary it can be, but you’ve got quite the little gathering here! I hope Marco,” at this she shot him a keen, calculating look, “has been helping you out.”

“Oh, yes!” Sasha said immediately, waving away Hyacinth’s concern. “Marco’s been a big help, Mrs. Wagner. He’s been such a lifesaver!”

Hyacinth hummed thoughtfully. “He has a knack for being one of those, hasn’t he?” she said, gazing at him as she spoke. Marco didn’t like that look. It meant that she was thinking, and a Hyacinth thought was always a dangerous one. He waited for it to take root and grow – it would always take root and grow – and knew all he could do was wait.

Sure enough, it came to fruition a few nights later when Eren and Armin were giving their final farewells. Hyacinth and Emil had gone to get coffee before they too went home, but Eren had been too busy regaling Marco with tales from the shop to notice the visiting hours were dripping away bit by bit (Eren had taken Marco’s job temporarily, something Marlow deeply regretted). When the third nurse swept by with a heavy tut, Armin suggested that they leave.

“We’ll see you tomorrow!” Eren promised, taking Armin’s hand and beaming at him. It was strange how well the two of them fit together; Eren, short and dark and clothed in anything blinding to the naked eye, and Armin, pale and pastel and tall. But as Eren’s hand squeezed gently around Armin’s, Marco felt the smile spread across his face. Eren giggled – actually _giggled –_ and hid his face against Armin’s shoulder. Armin gave him a soft smile and looked back to Marco. “Have you heard anything from Jean?” he asked.

Marco’s good mood immediately sunk. He thought back to his phone, still void of the one name he prayed to have pop up on the screen. “No,” he said.

Armin frowned at this. “You should call him, when all this is over. I think he’d want to talk to you.”

Marco sighed. All pretence faded as he snatched at the book Emil had left by the side of his bed. “He made it very clear he doesn’t want to talk to me. Can’t say I blame him.” He brought the book up to his face, more to eclipse the strength of Armin’s frown than to actually read it. The printed words swam in front of his eyes without sinking in.

“You can blame him,” Armin urged gently. “He’s a messed up kid, I know that, but he still made a mistake. A big mistake. He wasn’t good to you, Marco, and you can’t go blaming yourself for the way Jean acted.” He sighed, and turned to look at Eren before his eyes drifted back to Marco. “It’s never a good time to tell someone about HIV. I counsel people who have to do just that, trust me, I know. There’s no right or wrong way. Some people are supportive, others suspicious or angry or neglectful. But it’s all because they’re scared of what it means.” He squeezed Eren’s hand as he talked. “But often, people are scared because they think it’s a death sentence, and it doesn’t have to be. Definitely not, if you’re taking pills and taking precautions. People are ignorant, Marco, and Jean is one of those people. He doesn’t know anything about HIV except the bad parts. And I know-” he interjected before Marco could open his mouth, “that there is no ‘good’ part of HIV, but there’s the living with it. There’s the medication. There’s the potential cure, if scientists pull their finger out. There’s hope. That’s not something Jean has in large supply.”

Marco let Emil’s book drop onto his chest. He’d never thought about it that way. He’d been so focused on how _he_ had messed up by telling Jean, how _he_ should have told him sooner, that he hadn’t stopped to think about Jean possibly being as much in the wrong as he was.

“You’re very good at beating yourself up about things that happen,” Armin said. “Let someone else get beaten up for a change.” The softness gave way to something else in Armin’s tone that made Eren nudge him, frowning. They’d discussed this. Marco could tell by the way Armin frowned back.

Marco mirrored them both. “Are you saying I should hate Jean?” he asked. “Is that it?”

“Not at all!” Armin’s frown increased. “I just think that it’s time the two of you talked about it, that’s all. Jean said a lot of things he regrets, things that he really should have known better than to say. And I know you don’t want to give up on him just yet. He certainly doesn’t want to give up on you.”

Something in Armin’s voice sounded too specific to be hypothetical. Marco was suddenly a lot more awake. “Have you spoken to him?” he asked.

Eren looked wide-eyed at Armin, who looked as though he’d let something slip he shouldn’t have. “No,” he replied coolly. “I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have!” A flutter of hope stirred in Marco’s stomach, birthed from ashes. “Armin, what did he say? He wants to speak to me?”

Eren looked between the two of them with a deeply set frown. He’d clearly been told to sit this one out; he had been uncharacteristically silent as Armin talked, but now he looked like he really, really wanted to say something. Marco willed him to break his silence, but he ended up shaking his head and looking back out to the corridor. He gave Armin’s hand a tug. “Ugh, Marco I hate to do this but the nurse looks like she’s going to commit first degree murder if we don’t get out of here and I’m on my final warning,” he said.

Armin sighed, though he seemed a little relieved at the excuse to leave. He gave Marco’s hand a soft pat as he left, and Eren did nothing but through a sympathetic look over his shoulder as he walked away, hand in hand with Armin. It was Armin who turned back as he reached the door, and Marco’s hope fluttered again, so paper thin it felt like cuts in his chest. “He didn’t need to tell me he wanted to speak to you, Marco. It was obvious.”

Marco’s hope bled out into something far stronger. He stared wildly after Armin and Eren as they left, the feeling of solidarity taking root and sprouting. Was it true? Could Jean want to speak to him?

He looked down at his hands, scarred from the blood transfusions and drips but now free of both, and the feeling flickered. He knew as well as anyone that sometimes things couldn’t be fixed. You could work away at them, hour after hour, and pour every ounce of effort and determination into it, but something would always be missing. Even if you got it working again, a lack of parts or change in gears would mean that the thing would never work quite as well as it used to. He didn’t want things to work differently. He wanted things to be the same, just the same as before – but he knew he could never have it. The HIV diagnosis hung like a noose around his neck now, ugly and obvious. Jean would see that noose every day, and shudder from it.

_I’m not you_ , Jean had said. _I’m not Marco Bodt. I can’t watch you die._

Marco closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. The good mood that had built up around him began to darken.

“We brought you hot chocolate!” trilled Hyacinth’s voice as she came bustling in. “Don’t tell the nurses!”

Marco cracked an eye open. “Oh. Thanks.”

Hyacinth pouted and shoved a plastic cup into Marco’s hands. “Hey, what’s that face for? I’ve seen road accidents more cheerful,” she snorted, pulling up her chair.

“Sorry.” He offered her a weak smile as he brought the cup to his lips. “I was thinking.” The hot chocolate was weak, and scorched the back of his throat as he drank it in the way vending machine drinks always did, but he didn’t complain. The sweet taste, however diluted, was a welcome change from the watery juices he was given by the nurses. His reply seemed to satisfy Hyacinth, as she snorted again and drank from her own cup. The three of sat quietly for a moment.

Emil was the one who cleared his throat first. Picking up the book Marco had set down on his chest and frowning at the dog-eared page, he barely raised his voice from a mumble. “So, who’s Jean?”

The hot chocolate scalded the back of Marco’s throat as he choked. He waved away the Wagners’ concern and coughed for a moment before he spluttered, red faced and awkward, “W-who told you about Jean?”

“We heard the boys talking in the corridor,” Hyacinth said. “Now, we’re not ones to pry, but we couldn’t help it. Eren was talking at the top of his voice, bless his heart. I’m pretty sure everyone now knows that Jean’s an absolute… oh, what was it Emil?”

“An absolute pissing idiot,” he quoted, smiling.

“That’s it. So eloquent, that boy. His vocabulary is really coming together.”

Cheeks still blazing, Marco picked up his cup and took a smaller, more calculated sip. “He’s not an idiot,” he muttered.

“Oh, so you _do_ know a Jean!” Hyacinth cried, triumphant.

Marco looked between them, unsure of what to say. How was he going to explain to his dead boyfriend’s parents that he had been seeing someone else? Was that even what it had been, him and Jean? He had just been reunited with these people – he didn’t want to drive them away so soon.

“Jean is…” Words stuck in his throat and refused to come out. “…a guy I know,” he finished, inwardly cringing for being so weak.

“Oh,” Hyacinth said, sharing an interested glance with her husband, “a guy you know.”

There was silence for a moment, as Hyacinth and Emil shared a small conversation in blinks and eyebrow raises. Then Emil stood up from his chair with a groan.

“I’m going to turn the car around, sweetheart,” he grunted. A few joints clicked as he moved across the room, and Marco winced in sympathy. Hyacinth allowed her cheek to be kissed and beamed at him in answer, and Emil chucked her under the chin the way teenage sweethearts did in films. The ache in Marco’s chest grew deeper. “See you soon, Marco,” he said, clasping Marco’s hand and squeezing it affectionately as he passed. “We’re talking to the nurses tomorrow to see when you can get yourself back home. Shouldn’t be too long now, you’re healing up well.”

“Thanks,” Marco said, though his smile was strained. Emil wasn’t leaving to turn the car around. He was leaving to give Hyacinth some privacy with him. He wished he’d stay; Emil was too awkward around feelings and emotions, so having him around was a safe bet that they wouldn’t surface. All hope of things just being swept under a rug vanished along with Emil down the brightly lit corridor beyond his door.

When he looked back to Hyacinth, heart sinking, he saw that her expression was still holding that thoughtful frown. “What is it?” he asked, dreading the answer.

Hyacinth fidgeted in her seat. “Marco…” She put her hands together and rocked forward a little as she kept her gaze fixed on the flock dress she was wearing. “I’ve been thinking a few things through recently. And I want you to know that we love you, both of us do. More than we can say. More than we ever thought we could love someone, after Thomas…” She shook herself like she was trying to fend off horseflies. “A-anyway, I just need to say that falling in love… it can happen more than once.”

Marco stared at her. She was twisting the material around her fingers, the thick wool with its bright patterns turning over and over like oil on water. Her mouth twitched into a small smile as she felt the weight of his gaze on her. “I know it hurt, sweetheart. It still hurts something, more than you can bear. Every part of you feels like it’s breaking apart, and you have to scramble to keep the pieces to yourself.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining like small moons. “But please, don’t keep them all to yourself. Don’t let the way you love people die with my boy.” 

Marco was at a loss for words. Every time he tried to speak, nothing but a pained sort of wheezing escaped from his lips. She knew. God, she knew more than anyone. She knew what it was like to stay up late, holding someone you loved so fiercely in your arms and praying with every ounce of faith in your body that they saw the next day. She knew how selfishly you yearned for a few more weeks, a few more days, a few more _hours_ , as if that would make saying goodbye easier. Hyacinth knew loss. Yet she still thought Marco deserved another chance, even if the person he wanted to create that chance with wasn’t her son.

Hyacinth was smiling at him, though her eyes were swimming with tears, and Marco felt his heart clench. He reached over to take one of her hands, marvelling at how soft they seemed, and gulped back the lump that appeared in his throat.

“Hyacinth…” His voice broke halfway through her name.

“You are such a loving boy, Marco,” Hyacinth continued, blinking owlishly to keep the tears at bay. “Ever since you stumbled onto my doorstep holding my boy’s hand, I knew. I knew that you had something special, that Thomas…” she stumbled over her words and fought to keep up. She stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “That Thomas was lucky to have met you. I’m so glad he did. You did so much for him.”

Marco shook his head. The tears were dripping down his nose now, staining his sheets grey as he hung his head and trembled. “I was lucky to have met _him_ ,” he corrected weakly, his chest shuddering with the effort. “He… he accepted me as I was, how I always wanted to be and… _god_ , I loved him, I loved him so much…”

“And he loved you,” she said firmly, “and I know what he said to you, even if you pretend to have forgotten.” She sniffled as she shuffled closer, threading her fingers through Marco’s and sighing softly. She’d been burning incense in her hotel; Marco could smell it on her, heavy and musky, and couldn’t help feeling soothed by the way it hung about her like a witch’s cloak. “He didn’t want you to mourn him forever, Marco. He wanted you to be happy, whatever you did. That’s all he ever wanted for you.”

Marco closed his eyes and let a small sob wriggle its way out. “It’s not fair,” he said eventually, lifting his head up to watch her. “It’s so h-hard, I want him back, but…” _But I can’t help the twisting feeling in my gut whenever I think of Jean. I can’t stop how warm I feel when he puts his hand in mine, or presses his lips to my skin. I can’t hold myself back from **feeling.**_

“He’s not coming back,” Hyacinth said, though it looked like it was a punch in the stomach to say it aloud. “H-he’s… he’s not coming back, and I know that’s hard, and I know it’s unfair. I always think he’ll come barging through our door and stand there in one of those hideous jumpers I made for him and everything will be like it was, but life’s not like that.” She sighed. “It’s cold, and it’s cruel and it’s sharp.” She shook her head and let her eyes land on the forgotten paper, shoved onto the side and ringed with coffee stains.

‘ _NAMELESS HERO LIES IN HOSPITAL…_ ’

Hyacinth shuddered, and closed her eyes, willing herself to speak clearly. “And looking for trouble…getting involved in things like this… sweetheart, it won’t bring him back. Believe me, I’ve tried every trick in the book to bring him back to me, and it just doesn’t work.”

Marco felt something dig painfully between his ribs. And there it was; it hung there for a moment, suspended in the air above Marco’s head like it was threatening to rain down on him.

It wouldn’t bring him back.

This… helping, this saving people, this trying to right the wrongs of Trost… he did it because he couldn’t save Thomas.

It was almost freeing, hearing it said out in the open. It was a though a weight Marco hadn’t even known existed was removed from his shoulders, and he was left rolling the stiffness out of them. He sat staring at Hyacinth, what little breath he did have escaping in short, panicked gasps. Hyacinth was crying, the tears trailing down her face and dripping onto the hand he’d placed on hers, but she had her eyes open and fixed on him. She was remarkably calm. Marco supposed she’d had a great deal of practice. Of course, he’d known that was the reason – how could he not? He’d been helpless with Thomas, by the end; he’d had to sit and wait and know that with every inch of life that left Thomas, an inch drained from him, too. That helplessness had been sickening.

“There are good things in the world, Marco,” she said, “and you’ve found some of them already. You’ve found your friends, your job, your home. It’s not perfect, but it’s yours. Not many people can boast of that.” She reached up and patted him on the head, her hand lingering on the dark waves she found there. “But you always have to keep looking for more, and don’t you go letting them out of your grasp. Being miserable won’t bring him back, and being happy won’t make him disappear.”

Marco leant into her touch with a sigh, his skin tingling with the way she played with it. “Why do you always have to be so right?” he whined, persuading a quiet chuckle out of her.

She gave a small, watery laugh and kissed his forehead. “Well, that’s an easy question. I’m Hyacinth Wagner. I’m like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way.” She cupped his cheek fondly, and Marco bit his lip around a smile before she let go.

The sobs had subsided. The sadness was still lingering on his surface, but it was subdued now, buoyed down with the reality of her words. Being sad was okay. Missing Thomas was okay. But there was a different feeling mixed in now, and to Marco’s surprise he recognised it as relief. He would never make peace with losing Thomas, he knew that, but that didn’t mean he had to keep that sadness attached to him all the time. He could leave it somewhere for a while, tether it to the nearest chair and come back to it later, at a more convenient time. He could move on. He could let someone else in. He didn’t have to feel like he was losing Thomas all over again, just for loving someone else.

Did he love Jean?

The word felt fresh and new in his mind, like he’d never thought of it before. He liked Jean, definitely. He wanted to be with him, sure. But love was completely different. Love meant security; it meant trust, and cutting new house keys. Was he ready for _that_?

“Lights out! Visiting hours are over!”

Hyacinth swore under her breath, told Marco never to repeat it and kissed his forehead again. “You sleep tight, sweetheart. You’ll be out of here soon.”

Marco sincerely hoped she was right about that too.

* * *

It took three days. Three frustrating, boredom filled days. But Marco had a date set for his discharge from Trost General, and he could not wait for the day to dawn. The nurses and doctors were swarming around him a lot more now, checking and rechecking that he was capable of leaving. They fussed over his bandages, taught him how to tie them correctly and told him how often he would have to visit to get his stitches looked at and redone. He would always have a scar, that was something no amount of salve or stitch could hope to mask, but it was a small price to pay for surviving. He would recover. He would be okay. Marco found himself glancing over to his pill pot on the bedside table, and wondered if ‘okay’ was just another word people used without thinking about it.

The pills would still be there. The sickness would still overtake him sometimes, though definitely not as often as it used to. He still had to worry about that diagnosis, the one that told him he was teetering on the edge of the very precipice he’d tried to stop Thomas from falling from. He would start his new pills soon; the hospital had been slowly weaning him off the cocktail and replacing it with a single white pill, and Marco had to admit that it hadn’t affected him nearly as much as the cocktail had. A new pill meant new opportunities – it could even mean dragging him back from that brink, step by step. It was a lucky escape. He seemed to be full of them lately.

Soon, he would be back home. That was the thought that grounded him, throughout all the paperwork and observations. He smiled to think of it. He would be back in his apartment. He’d have Batman. He’d have the view of the city, fogged and murky through his dirty windows. The harsh light of the hospital would fade away and be replaced with the warm glow of lightbulbs due to be replaced and layers upon layers of moth eaten blankets. Hyacinth was right – it wasn’t perfect, but it belonged to him. That was what he wanted.

And he wanted Jean. He wanted Jean like the end of a long day, when he was bone tired and needed recharging. He wanted to watch him paint and see Claudine grow up. He wanted that smell of oil paint and baby food on his clothes, his bedsheets, his very skin. He wanted it more than he could bear.

He made up his mind that, once he was settled at home and taken a few days to sleep and relax in the comfort of his own bed, he would talk to Jean.

But it would have to happen in steps. He had to leave the hospital first. So he forced Jean to the back of his mind and signed on dotted lines and nodded politely at the doctors’ advice. On his friends’ last visits he laughed at Eren’s jokes and hugged Sasha and promised he’d be back at work to Marlow. He caught Mikasa’s eye and offered smiles that weren’t quite smiles, and she returned not quite frowns.

When the day arrived, Marco was awake early. His body had woken him up like he was seven and going on a particularly exciting school trip. Hyacinth had already managed to barge her way into the hospital and was stood looking out of the door, her voice high and excited. “Emil! Emil! Come on, today’s the day remember!”

“How can I not? You were shrieking like a banshee down the road. I almost crashed the car.”

There was no machine wired to him to catch the way his heart pounded in his chest. He was going home. Finally. And the Wagners were there to take him.

Hyacinth swept him into a hug the moment she realised he was awake, beaming from ear to ear as she released him. “You excited?” she asked, dumping a mound of clothes on his bed.

Marco grinned. “Definitely. I can’t wait to leave.”

“You and me both, kid,” Emil said, squeezing Marco’s free hand as he reached him. “Don’t think Hyacinth could’ve stood it for much longer. I reckon she was about ready to break you out of here herself.”

“I’m capable of many things, Emil,” Hyacinth replied snottily, “but I lack the blueprints for such a heist.”

The wait for the nurses to make their rounds and make their final assessments was so long it felt like torture. The hours dripped by, and Marco eventually got up from his bed and began to pace, his hospital gown rustling about him and thankfully reaching all the way around his body. It stuck to every crease in his body as he moved, as it always did. He made a face. “When are they going to be here?” he asked, turning from his fourth circuit of the room and huffing in frustration.

Emil looked up from his newspaper. “Soon.”

“Better be bloody soon,” Hyacinth grumbled, standing up herself and drifting to the door. “Should be top of the agenda, getting us out of here.”

“I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing you go, my dear,” Emil said, diving his head back into the paper. “And stop pacing, the both of you. I feel like I’m in a zoo.”

Marco stopped. Hyacinth just glared, and paced even more.

Thankfully, a smiling doctor arrived just as Hyacinth decided to track someone down and drag them to Marco’s room. “Good morning, Mr Bodt! Up and about I see. We can’t tempt you to stay?” he said, the smile definitely genuine.

Marco shook his head. “Sorry. I miss my cat.”

That made the doctor laugh. He went over the final notes quickly, filling out parts of Marco’s record and crossing out sections that required additional treatment or medication. “Okay, I think we’re all set. Get yourself changed and head down to the reception to sign yourself out when you’re ready. Make sure you take all your personal belongings with you.” His smile was addictive. Marco found himself smiling back.

Mikasa turned up just as Marco was finishing his final assessment, red scarf knotted around her throat and usual black jacket. Marco looked up as she came in, and noticed the pinkness to her cheeks. She’d been running. “What,” she panted as he blinked at her, “didn’t think I’d miss your discharge from hospital, did you?”

Marco grinned as the nurse taking his blood for the last time nodded with satisfaction and left the room. “I guess not.”

Mikasa bumped him with her hip daintily, and Marco bumped her right back. “C’mon, let’s get your stuff together,” she said, ever the practical one, and Marco never thought he would be eager to get things tidied up.

Hyacinth insisted on making the bed despite Marco’s protests that the sheets would be cleaned anyway, and he was roped into tucking the corners in and refluffing the pillows. Hyacinth liked to be busy, he noted as she bustled around calling out instructions to a clearly used to it Emil. Maybe being busy was her version of helping people. She only allowed him to start packing his things together when she was sure the room looked as clean as it had when Marco had arrived in it – which Marco couldn’t exactly remember, but didn’t have the heart to correct her.

His belongings were few. Mikasa and Sasha had brought a few little things every time he visited to make Marco feel a bit less like he was in a clinical white room; his alarm clock, a notebook and pen, a few little trinkets he always kept close. They were all easy to collect up, however, and soon his single bag lay on the pristine bed looking just as empty as it had when it had been placed there. It looked sort of sad, just sat there. “Emil will help get the rest of your things together,” Hyacinth instructed, whilst Emil rolled his eyes good-naturedly, “and I’ll go and get the car! Mikasa, you help him get changed.”

Marco snorted. “I think I’m fine.”

“You can’t pull your stitches!” Hyacinth scolded. “Mikasa’s seen you naked before, she won’t mind.”

“HYACINTH.”

“C’mon, let’s get it over with,” Mikasa said, shooting Hyacinth a wry look before bundling up his clothes in her arms and pushing him out of the door.

Hyacinth had chosen a baggy blue hoodie and dark jeans, which was tame compared to her usual fashion choices – Marco was thankful she hadn’t had Eren helping her. Mikasa helped him wrestle the hateful hospital gown off, almost treading on his toes in the process, and then began the struggle of pulling his shirt on. She ended up forcing the hoodie over his head and dragging it down, mindful of the stitches in his side but not altogether gentle about it. “Don’t…ugn…think…you’re gonna get this treatment…when you’re…home,” she grunted as she pulled.

Marco’s head popped out a moment later, his hair sticking up in every available direction. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he answered.

Mikasa made a thoughtful hum and reached up to flatten his hair as best she could. She looked him up and down appraisingly, and heaved out a sigh. “You’ll do. You need a shower.”

“Thanks, Mikasa. I was stabbed two weeks ago.”

Mikasa raised an eyebrow. “Stabbing or no stabbing, you still stink. I say it out of love.”

When they emerged from the bathroom Mikasa had dragged him into to change, she headed off down the corridor. “I’ll head to reception. Do you need anything? Want anything?”

Marco smiled at her concern. “I want to go home,” he said, and Mikasa’s smile was one of her more beautiful, unreserved ones.

“They’re all waiting for you, you know,” she said. “I was meant to keep it secret. They’re all back at your place. Ymir’s finally crawled out of the woodwork and she’s come armed to the nines with moonshine – which you’re not drinking, by the way,” she added before Marco could protest.

Marco just smiled wider. “Is Ymir okay?”

“She came in with her tail between her legs and Sasha slapped her, but she’s fine.” Mikasa smiled again. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. Nothing’s changed, just because they all know. Outside those doors, it’s exactly the same.”

Marco engulfed her in a hug that took her by surprise, but she had the good graces to hug him back. There was something that wouldn’t be the same. Marco could no longer pretend that Jean wanted or didn’t want to see him. He would find out for real. That was daunting. But the gentle squeeze Mikasa gave him as she pulled away and the promise she made that Eren would not be dancing on the table again overshadowed all that – at least for the moment. Marco watched her practically skip down the corridor, and turned back to his room. _No,_ he corrected, _a room. His room was waiting for him back home._

As he pulled open the door, he saw that Emil was the only one there. He looked up quickly, like he hadn’t expected Marco to come back so soon. He was holding something loose down by his side, swinging it idly as he looked at him, but Marco didn’t pay it much notice. “Hey there,” Emil greeted. He sounded distracted, like he’d just been pulled out of a rather long train of thought.

“Hey,” Marco said, the smile he’d wanted to keep on his face all day returning to his face. “We can get out of here. Finally.” Still grinning, he strode over to the bed and swung his bag onto his shoulder. “Everyone’s back at my place. I can give directions. You’ve never seen my apartment, you’ll think your hotel is the Ritz compared to it, believe me. We have tea though, which is all that matters in an apartment Sasha says… unless she’s drank it all.” He knew he was rambling, and he knew Emil was smiling at him because he was rambling, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “We’ll definitely have coffee though, she thinks coffee is Satan’s drink of choice. You can check out of the hotel and stay with me if you want, I don’t mind if you take my bed. The sofa’s pretty comfortable. I mean, I think my friends are going to turn things into a party, so there’ll be a lot of people staying over, but if you’re okay with that...” His voice, mercifully, trailed off.  

Emil had stopped looking at Marco. His gaze had drifted down to the thing nestled against his side. Marco’s enthusiasm faltered. Maybe he’d got it wrong. Maybe they were just going to drop him off. They had jobs to go to, after all – or so he assumed. Hyacinth was never a nine to five sort of woman, but Emil was as straight and narrow as they came. “E-Emil?” he questioned.

Emil gave a little jolt that reminded Marco of Thomas when he’d been caught looking at something he shouldn’t have. “Sorry, lad,” he said, swiping a hand across his brow. It was creased in a characteristic frown, but not at Marco. It was still very much focused on the object. He brought it up to his chest, and Marco saw that it was a book.

“What is it?” he asked, moving closer.

Emil’s eyes flickered up. “You had a visitor,” he said.

It was Marco’s turn to frown. “Really? Who? Was it one of the-”

“Wasn’t anyone I’ve seen before.” Emil turned the book over in his hands and smoothed its surface with a gentle, curious touch. “Very polite kid though. Was the nervous sort. Looked like a gust of wind would blow him right over.”

Marco froze. _Him. Emil said ‘him’._ “W-what did he look like?” he said, his heart beginning to gallop painfully in his chest.

“Looked like death, if you ask me,” Emil shrugged. “Tired. Shadows under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping. Got a hat crammed on his head to hide his hair. Like I said, I haven’t seen him visit you before.” He shrugged again, still running his fingers along the object. “Just wanted to give you this.” He handed the book over, and Marco took it wordlessly.

He’d thought it was Emil’s book, but on closer inspection he saw that it was anything but. Emil’s cracked and battered old paperback was pulp compared to what he had in his hands. It was hardback and beautiful, the dust cover still shiny from lack of use and the pages all neatly aligned in their binding, and as Marco took it with slightly shaking hands and turned it over, he nearly dropped it.

It was a copy of _The Bell Jar._

Marco felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Marco?” Emil’s voice sounded far away. “Is everything-?”

“When did he go?” Marco asked, looking from the book to Emil urgently.

“About five minutes ago,” Emil answered, looking nonplussed. “Said he couldn’t stay, that he had done enough.”

Marco let out a strangled noise that was part groan, part gasp. “I have to go,” he said, backing out of the room.

Emil’s frown deepened. “Marco?”

There was no time to explain.

There was no time to _think._

Marco found his legs stumbling over themselves as he turned and charged out of the room, almost sending a nurse flying as he broke into a run. He blurted out an apology and kept running. His legs still weren’t accustomed to being used; they felt awkward and clumsy as he tore down the corridor and swung around the corner, but he couldn’t slow down. He wouldn’t catch up if he didn’t run.

Panting, he practically jumped down the stairs and skidded around the bend to see the reception desk looming into view. He passed it without a backwards glance. Confused shouts from Mikasa and Hyacinth loitered in the space Marco had been seconds before, but he had no breath in his lungs to reply. He was running harder than he’d run back with the gang. His breath was coming shorter, his feet pounding on the tiled floor. He’d forgotten how to pace himself. He’d taught himself quickly how to get the most out of his body; he should have been regulating his breaths, counting his strides even, but it had all gone sailing out of his mind. He wasn’t running to get away, or to chase. He was running like a hunted man.

He threw himself against the main doors and stumbled out, blinking, into the bright grey of the hospital car park. Shaking himself like a dog, he looked around him, chest heaving and heartbeat roaring in his ears as he ran out of the car park and out onto the street. Where was he? Where would be have gone? Had he missed him? Marco looked this way and that, searching the crowd frantically-

But there was no one.

The city swelled and sighed around him like a roiling ocean, the people rushing to work the same grey people, and no matter how violently he swung around, no matter how many faces he examined, none of them matched the one he was looking for.

He slumped against the nearest wall, panting for breath as his beaten body screamed at him. He was too late. Jean had vanished, back into the noise and the clamour of Trost.

* * *

Marco tried not to show his quiet on the way home. Once he’d gone back into the hospital and signed the relevant paperwork, watched over by a highly critical Mikasa, the Wagners were eager to bundle him into their car and take him home. Marco made no fuss and let himself be dragged away, his excitement at being out of the hospital slowly deflating like an old balloon. Jean had been there. He had been _right there,_ so close Marco could have opened the door a second earlier and he might have bumped into him… but he hadn’t. That knowledge stung more than any of the needles he’d been subjected to in the hospital. But he let it sit, heavy and lonely in his stomach, and stopped wondering if the book he had in his hands was a promise or a farewell.

The Wagners’ car turned out to be a mint green VW campervan, which did not surprise Marco in the slightest. Mikasa looked dubiously at it, but she too was nudged forwards as Hyacinth and Emil chattered amongst themselves like magpies. They bundled Marco inside along with Mikasa and floored it before he’d even gotten comfortable. Hyacinth was driving. Marco made sure to wrap two seat belts around himself before they got out of the car park. Mikasa, however, wasn’t accustomed to Hyacinth’s driving, and soon found herself thrown against the window as Hyacinth braked particularly sharply. She very quickly followed Marco’s example.

Trost zoomed by without stopping to look at them, Marco’s head pressed against the window pane and _The Bell Jar_ still clutched in his arms. When Mikasa tried to take it from him, he gave her the kind of wide-eyed stare a cat gave to someone taking away their mouse. Mikasa huffed and took it anyway. Marco folded his arms and ignored her, watching the roads curve and twist along their journey back to his apartment. “Wow,” he heard her whisper. “This is… really nice, Marco.”

“I know,” he said without being able to stop himself, “it’s his special copy.”

Mikasa blinked. “Special copy?”

“He has one for keeping and one for making notes in,” Marco explained.

Mikasa looked back at the book. “Huh. He’s more of a nerd than I thought he was. Why did he give this to you?”

Marco sighed, and finally peeled his gaze away from the window. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “He gave me his study copy to read when we first met.”

Mikasa pursed her lips and gave the book back to him. “Jean doesn’t seem like the sort of person to lend out his books.”

“He’s not,” Marco replied, “not really. He only did it because he thought he owed me something.” That day seemed like years ago. “Then he just… kept on giving them to me. He gave me his good copy of _The Great Gatsby_ the day we kissed.”

“Interesting.” Mikasa hummed thoughtfully, and called out to the front of the van, “What do you think, Mrs Wagner?”

“I think if he doesn’t give books out to just anyone,” Hyacinth called back, swerving to avoid a swearing motorcyclist, “then Marco is very honoured to be someone he trusts. And if he gives out his nice copies, that means something a whole lot bigger.”

Marco turned a little red at this, and sunk down into his seat. “Can we not talk about this?” he tried.

He felt more than saw the looks swapped between Mikasa, Emil and Hyacinth (he knew she’d taken her eye off the road because Emil had to reach out and pull the steering wheel to the right) but nothing more was said. He was thankful for that.

When they pulled up at his apartment, Marco couldn’t stop the inescapable rush of home that flooded through his body. Staring up at the old factory, with its crumbling red brick and its creaky old windows, Marco didn’t want to be anywhere else. He got out of the camper with relative ease, only leaning on Mikasa once when his stitches pulled a little tight, and looked back to the Wagners, waiting for a response. If they were surprised, they didn’t show it.

Hyacinth beamed at him. “It’s very you, Marco,” she said, and Marco had to admit it was.

He took it easy on himself and took the lift up to his floor, the same rumbling creak he knew so well feeling somehow alien to him now he had Emil and Hyacinth in the lift with him. Their eyes picked out all the graffiti and dents in the metal, and Marco felt a little self-conscious that this was the place he felt the safest in the world. But every time they caught his eye, they smiled, and knowing that they were trying was better than nothing at all.

He fumbled for the keys as he reached his door, and Mikasa wiggled them in front of his nose. “I kept them safe for you,” she explained, “since you were too busy slipping in and out of consciousness.”

“I’d like to remind you yet again that I was stabbed, Mikasa.”

“Still.” She was smiling, though. Smiling was good. Marco huffed playfully and gave her a little shove, smiling back, and she turned the key in the lock.

A round of applause and cheers rushed up to meet him like a shockwave, the sound bursting into a roar as soon as he stepped inside. It was enough to stop him in his tracks. They were all there, seated on his sofa and sprawled on the floor; Eren, with his arm slunk around Armin’s waist, Sasha bouncing on her heels as she clapped, Connie almost knocking Armin and Eren off course in his enthusiasm – and even Marlow was joining in, a very rare smile adorning his features. Someone (he guessed Sasha) had bedecked the room in bunting and homemade banners, all of them proclaiming ‘WELCOME HOME SUPERMAN’ in gloopy red letters, and there were small bowls of food peppered about the place where people had dropped them. The kitchen seemed to be overwhelmed with bottles and glasses of every description, with alcohol and soft drinks and fruit juice, and as Marco looked around he saw that most of them had something clutched in their hand.

Anyone who had been sitting down when he had come in was now on their feet, and after a gentle nudge from Mikasa Marco stepped further into the room with a grin, ducking his head under the weight of their noise, but there was no weight on his chest. Not at that moment, with Eren running over to hang off his neck with a giddy laugh as the others laughed and chided him. Not when Sasha pulled him into a hug and kissed his cheek and told him it would be alright. Not when he had his friends, his unshakeable little family.

“So glad to see you back, Marco!”

“You really had us scared, you know you did!”

“Bet you’re relieved to be out of that place!”

He grinned and tried to pluck himself away from Eren, who had decided to cling to him like a rather stubborn limpet as he shuffled awkwardly into the room. “Yeah,” he answered, still swimming in the noise and the clamour, “Was looking forward to some peace and quiet.” Laughter bubbled up at this, and Marco ended up laughing too. A second raucous cheer went up as Hyacinth and Emil appeared from the doorway, and Marco took the opportunity to escape when Hyacinth ensnared Eren and pulled him to her bosom.

His freedom, however, was short-lived. He was soon thrown into more hugs, more shoulder shakes and cheek kisses and chatter, and he soon found himself slumped on the sofa with a bottle in one hand and a bowl of crisps shoved under his nose. “You have a lot of time to make up for,” Connie said, grinning as he took a few himself. “Get something unhealthy down your gullet!” The crisps, Marco hated to admit it, tasted so good he had to take a handful. He paused as he felt something soft brush against his leg, and he dropped everything to pick up a bemused looking cat. “Batman!” he cried joyfully, nestling his face into the soft white fur. “God, I missed you.” Batman batted him with his paw in an aloof sort of way, but it didn’t stop him from getting comfortable on Marco’s lap and purring like a traction engine.

“So go on,” Marlow said, once the excitement had died down, “how did it happen?”

There was an almighty uproar at his words. “Marlow, you can’t just _ask_ how someone got stabbed!” Eren said, flinging something that looked remarkably like a pretzel at him.

“What?! I wanna know! And you all do too, I know you do!” Marlow defended, throwing the pretzel back at Eren.

Marco laughed, scratching Batman behind the ear as he spoke. “It’s okay, I don’t mind talking about it.”

It turned out that despite their outcry at Marlow, everyone seemed very interested all of a sudden. They crowded around him curiously, Mikasa settling down next to him and slinging an arm over the back of the sofa. Even Hyacinth and Emil were looking mildly intrigued, though Hyacinth was sidling over to the drinks collection on the kitchen top. “There’s not really much to tell,” Marco admitted, nonplussed at all the eager faces. “I just… I met up with Ymir, she told me there were some of her old gang stealing cars and it sort of escalated from the- ow!”

Pain burst from the back of his head as Mikasa gave him a smart smack there. “You’re an idiot for going off like that,” she said, “I mean, what were you both thinking? Ymir got beaten up by those thugs, and you thought you’d be able to walk in and stop them?”

“Well, he made a pretty good attempt. Would’ve gotten away with it if oilfingers mcgee hadn’t stolen my blade.” Marco turned to see Ymir sidestepping out of the hallway, fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle of something he couldn’t pronounce. She didn’t look terrible like Mikasa and Eren had the first time he saw them; she was dressed as she always was, and her hair was scraped into the typical ponytail. No - it was something else.

It was her eyes, Marco noticed as she sauntered into the room. There was the ghost of what looked to be panic in them. Her smile, toothy and slightly wild, didn’t match up with the look she was giving him. She even moved a little oddly, like every step had been practiced beforehand.

He stood up, Batman leaping off his lap with a grumble, and made his way over to her. Ymir’s smile stayed fixed on like a mask until he got close. It dropped like a veil around her. He could see her properly, at that moment. Her mouth drew into a thin line as she looked him up and down, eyes flickering to the scar on his eyebrow and the bottle in his hand. A hand came up to move his head to the right, then to the left, and then to slap him playfully on the cheek, though a little too hard for Marco’s liking. She sniffed. “You’re alright then.”

“I’m fine.” Marco sighed, cradling his stinging cheek. “The doctors were great.”

“Don’t know much about doctors,” she grunted.

Marco bit his lip. It had gone eerily quiet around him. “Look, Ymir, I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have gone back. I should have run.”

Ymir considered this for a moment. “Well, yes, you probably should’ve. But I’m used to it.” She shrugged. “You’re a dumb bastard, always have been.”

“But I’m alright,” Marco pressed.

Ymir’s gaze wavered. “You’re alright,” she said, firmly.

Marco nodded, and then Ymir did something extraordinary. She put her arms around him and just held him. It wasn’t a bone-crushing hug or a playful grapple – she was just _holding him._ It hadn’t ever occurred to him to think of an embrace from Ymir as tender, but that was the best word to describe it. For a second, he didn’t move; it felt impossible. It was like the lack of restraint was more binding than the tightest squeeze in the world. “Ymir-?”

She pulled away, apparently realising what she was doing. “Ugh, don’t make it so hetero, Bodt,” she said, shoving his face away. “You nearly died, you fuckin’ idiot, I’m allowed to be affectionate. Besides,” she added, a little mollified, “could’ve…y’know, pulled your stitches…”  

Marco blinked at her. “Wow. Well, I must admit when I think of the word ‘affectionate’, you’re not the first person who springs to mind.”

“Fuckin’ charming, Twinkle.”

It was at that moment Connie’s music came on, and they were all treated to a terrible dance remix of Cascada. “And I thought the original was bad enough,” Armin muttered as Connie turned bright red and spluttered that it was his mothers’ favourite. Ymir let out a barking splutter of a laugh and walked over to the source of the horrendous bass rhythm, patting Marco on the arm as she passed him.

Marco watched her go, knowing with growing relief that all was well between them, and grinned at Armin’s comment. “Hey, don’t you mock Cascada in our household. She is a queen.”

Armin looked crestfallen. “Oh no,” he sighed.

* * *

As Marco predicted, the gathering very quickly turned into a low budget party. Connie’s sound system was on the blink, but once Marlow started to fiddle with the wiring halfway through the night, he managed to kickstart something that meant the bass boomed louder than it had when it was brand new. Marco was pretty sure Marlow had planted something inside it, but Marlow waved off the praise modestly and saved his knowledgeable grins for when only Marco could see them.

He'd been told no table dancing, and miraculously no one had decided to suggest it. Everyone was just sat around talking, a few people danced, and a select few got roaring drunk – including, to Marco’s amusement, Mikasa. “You dunno what I’ve been through wi’ you,” she slurred when he caught her draining another bottle of vodka into her glass. “I too’ your virgini’y and I need’a keep you safe!”

“C’mon Mikasa,” Marco said, close to laughter as he wrapped one of her arms around his neck. “Let’s get you over to the sofa.”

“Been up all night worryin’,” she mumbled into his neck, “and now you’re _here_ ssssso I’m gonna drink.”

Marco enlisted Armin’s help to carry her over to the sofa, and once she was laid on there she very quickly began to snore – in between singing the lyrics to ‘Yellow Submarine’. Armin and Marco glanced at each other.

“She’s not drank in a long time,” Marco explained. 

“I can see why,” Armin grinned.

Marco slumped down so his back was resting against the sofa, cringing a little when his stitches complained, and saw that Hyacinth and Ymir were sat under the windows. Whilst Ymir was sprawled rather awkwardly on the floor, Hyacinth was sat with her legs crossed together neatly, her voice loud above the music. “And you say you punched him _three_ times? Three? Well, for the way he acted, I would have punched him four times and added a kick for good luck.”

Marco rolled his eyes and watched them talk. In a way, it was like watching mirror images; Ymir, throwing her head back and laughing at something shrewd Hyacinth had said, and Hyacinth cackling at a wisecrack Ymir had made just seemed like exactly the same person, just a few decades apart. Marco, more than anyone, knew how worryingly accurate the observation was.

When Hyacinth rose to her feet in search of more drink, Marco shuffled over and gave Ymir a grin. “Seems like you two are getting on well.”

“She knows things, Twinkle,” Ymir said, her eyes taking on a glassy appearance as she watched the little woman tottering around. “She looks all innocence and light but she knows some shit. She’s _done_ some shit.”

Marco nodded. “That’s Hyacinth. Not quite the peaceful hippie she seems.”

Ymir let out a chuff of a laugh, but then the smile faded. It was then that Marco noticed the faint swelling around her cheekbone, and the little white mark of a healing scar on her lip from where it had been split. Though the fight was dead and gone, the memory of it still walked on Ymir – in fact, it looked like it was treading all over her. Marco sighed. “Ymir?”

She didn’t look at him. “Yeah?” 

“It’s fine.”

“What?” She still refused to look at him.

“That you didn’t visit at the hospital.”

“Oh. That.” She exhaled slowly and took a swig of her bottle. She grimaced when she pulled it away from her lips. “If the docs saw the blood on my clothes they’d have called the pigs. You know it’s one more slip up and I’m off to the penitentiary. Ain’t no one getting me in that pit again. Once was definitely enough.” She winced at the memory and took another swig. Marco saw that the bottle’s label was yellowed and peeling, and the alcohol smelt strongly of rotten wheat.

“That’s fine.”

She sniffed. “I know it is.”

Marco smiled. “No, you didn’t.”

Ymir gave a loud huff through her nose and slung an arm around him. “Look, call me fuckin’ loony if you want, but I like having you around, Twinkle. And I must be outta my fuckin’ mind, but I actually give a shit about what you think of me.” She was very firmly looking away from him now, off in the direction of Emil discussing something very in depth with Marlow. “Didn’t want you thinking I didn’t care. S’all.” Her mouth twisted in a mockery of a frown, as though it pained her to admit it.  

Marco sighed again. He leant into her a little as he followed her gaze, trying not to think about the way thoughts were warming and flickering inside him in light of her words. “You should be careful,” he commented drily, as Ymir turned to look at him. “People will start thinking you’ve gone soft.”

Ymir snorted. “Nah. You and me, Twinkle,” she gave him a playful shove at this, “we’re as tough as they come.”

Marco laughed, and was pleased to see Ymir crack a smile that was a lot more easy-going and a lot less aggressive than it usually was. “I guess so,” he replied.

Eren decided to prance over at that exact moment and demand Marco accompany him to the kitchen (“Armin went out for more booze and we gotta make a cocktail of what’s left before he comes back, c’mon!”) so Marco’s gentle teasing had to wait. He got up with a wince, causing everyone to look around in alarm, but when he was sure he was alright the whole room relaxed again. He followed Eren to the kitchen island – _his_ island – and helped himself to another bottle of something sugary and non-alcoholic Sasha had bought. It tasted like molten splendour after the weeks of slightly warm water and slightly cold filter coffee. As Eren grabbed all the half empty bottles and rooted around for an old jug or pitcher in the cupboards, Marco looked around from his vantage point.

His apartment was as it always was; a little cluttered, a little run down – the windows were still firmly shut, he noticed, despite the fact the days were getting warmer – but nonetheless the same brick and mortar and plaster. It all felt exactly the same. There was no big change. _What had he expected?_ he found himself wondering. He’d only been gone two weeks. It wasn’t like it had been years.

He chanced a look at Eren and saw that he was using a chipped old milk jug for his concoction, and was busy pouring what looked like whiskey into it. “Mikasa was right to warn me, you know,” he said over the noise – Connie’s speakers had decided to blare out ‘Ballroom Blitz’ at an ear-splitting volume.

“Pah, she’s such a spoilsport!” Eren shouted back, still pouring more into the jug. Marco handed him a glass with a trickle of vodka inside, which Eren took gratefully. “I know you’re no good with surprises, but you needed this.”

“And what is _this,_ exactly?” Marco said, wordlessly pouring a shot of his drink into the jug for variety.

Eren gestured at the room beyond. “This!” he said gleefully. Marco looked.

Mikasa was still asleep on the sofa, though she had been rearranged so more people could sit or slump across it with her. Marlow was still talking intently with Emil, but the alcohol appeared to be taking its toll, since he hadn’t yet realised Mikasa’s hand was in his hair. Somewhere along the line Hyacinth had decided to challenge Ymir to a drinking contest, and amid excited chants from Sasha and Connie, she was draining her bottle far quicker than Ymir could hope to. Sasha and Connie were flitting around like fireflies, drinking in the noise and the laughter, though every now and again Sasha had to pause and grab at the evidently complaining baby in her stomach. “It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” Marco mused.

“It’s not much,” Eren agreed, “but it’s home. Right?” He held out the jug to him, wiggling it invitingly. Marco eyed it dubiously. “C’mon, one sip won’t hurt!” Eren urged.

“That’s not what’s worrying me.”

Eren rolled his eyes. “Marco, one sip and I promise I won’t tell Mikasa.”

“She’s not my mother.”

“No, but your mother figure is currently drinking an ex wannabe gangster under the table, so she’s the next best bet.”

Marco snorted. “Fair point.” He took the jug from Eren, shrugged, and raised it to his lips.

He gagged just as Armin opened the door to the apartment. Though he was soaking wet but an apparent rain storm outside and weighed down by a large handful of shopping bags, he made his way over to the island remarkably fast to give Eren a stern look and to snatch the jug away from him. Marco couldn’t help grinning as Eren’s face dropped; it was like Armin had grown an Eren-Up-To-No-Good detector in the space of a few months. Very impressive – it had taken Marco a year.

“Aw, Armin!” Eren whined as his concoction was swiftly poured down the drain. “We weren’t going to drink it all!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Armin replied swiftly. He turned back to Eren, pressing the now empty jug into his chest until he took it, muttering darkly under his breath, and met Marco’s eyes. His hair was sopping wet, the water dripping from his hair and down his face, but though his eyes were somewhat hidden before he scraped his hair back, Marco felt the burn of them. He wanted to make some sort of wisecrack about it raining, but something about Armin stopped him in his tracks. He was smiling. He smiled a lot, but this had more feeling behind it. It held a sort of breathless excitement to it that made Marco frown, but before he could open his mouth, Armin opened his.

“Someone’s waiting for you down there,” he said, his smile splitting into a conspiratorial grin.

Marco’s stomach gave a lurch. “Armin…” he warned. That wasn’t fair. He had just begun to forget, for the moment, that something was still hurting inside him. He’d been able to forget about anything except for his friends and music and drink, and now Armin had brought him back down to reality with an unsightly bump. He didn’t want to believe it – couldn’t _afford_ to believe it – but nevertheless, the little moth-like sliver of hope reawakened in his chest. “Armin, please,” he said, too softly even to hear.

But Armin kept his giddy, secretive little smile, and inclined his head towards the door. “You better not keep him waiting. Go on. I’ll cover for you.”

For a second, Marco didn’t move; he remained still, staring at Armin in disbelief at what he was hearing. But then, he bolted. He scrambled away from the kitchen island, snatched his keys off the little hook by the door, and wrenched the door open.

The chill of the hallway hit him like a well-timed boulder. The old warehouse creaked and groaned around him as he rushed to the stairs and took them two at a time, the resounding clangs echoing off every wall as he rushed. His stitches ached and pulled as he moved, and his pulse was hammering in his ears so much that he was deaf to everything else. Someone could have called out to him. Someone could even have followed him. He neither noticed nor cared. The excitement, as he hit the end of the final staircase, began to contort and twist into something sharp that made him slow his steps and steady his breaths. In fact, it drew him to a stop on the ground floor, just before the door. _Fear,_ he thought as it twisted and coiled in his stomach, _this was fear._

Questions rolled around his mind. What was he going to say? What if all he wanted was his book back? Maybe he needed more time? No, he told himself as he took in a deep breath, he couldn’t keep putting it off. He needed to tear off the plaster. He couldn’t wait for a better time – there was never going to be a good time. He’d wrapped the pretence of bravery around himself like a cloak for so long. Now was the time to actually _be_ brave, truly brave. He put a hand on the door handle, inhaled, and stepped outside.

What limited light there had been was now sucked from the sky, replaced with the ink black of a starless city. Everything felt so much clearer in the dark; it was as though what limited light there was got swiftly devoured by the walls and pavements and set off sharp reliefs in the city. In the gaps between the rain, the streetlights flickered and darted like living flame, their light bouncing from wall to pavement to parked car. Marco squinted through the sheets of rain. There was a dark smudge in the middle of the picture. The smudge was caused by a lack of rain falling there, a tattered looking umbrella shielding its owner from the majority of the onslaught. It was dark, true, but Marco could see one thing for certain.

It was walking away.

Panic flooding through him, Marco stepped out of the comparative shelter and into the rain. It was only then, with a slight chill, that Marco realised he’d forgotten his coat. But the figure was walking away, it was getting smaller, it was moving so quickly…

“JEAN,” Marco roared. The sound seemed to slice through the raindrops in a way simply walking through couldn’t. He sounded wounded, broken, like a bear caught in a trap. He didn’t care. He called again. “JEAN!”

It was the sound of the past few months pouring out of him in a single, aching rush. It was the sound of all the times he’d wanted to call his name but never could. But now he’d found his voice, and he would scream as loud as he could if he thought it would turn him around. “JEAN KIRSCHTEIN!” he bellowed through the rushing noise of the rain.

The figure stiffened. Marco held his breath.

Waiting.

Hoping.

_Praying._

Then it was turning, the light of a streetlamp suddenly catching them across the face in the midst of the rain. In the eerie yellow glow, Marco saw Jean. A hoodie two sizes too big for him. A purple knitted beanie, crammed on his head. A scarf, with too many holes in to be fashionable. A carrier, strapped to his chest. Wide, shocked eyes.

Marco couldn’t stop the small noise of relief that fumbled its way out between his lips.

Jean seemed to hesitate, unsure whether Marco’s yell had been friendly or not, before taking cautious steps back towards him. As he grew nearer, Marco saw that he was cold and shivering – or was that nerves?

“Hi,” Marco called out, and felt incredibly stupid for doing so.

“Hey,” Jean called back, equally stupidly.

Marco beckoned towards the shelter he’d been stood under before, scarcely daring to believe that it really was him, and Jean followed meekly, his head ducked down against the rain and the hand not holding the umbrella clutching the weight of Claudine strapped to his chest. She was crying; Marco could hear her sobs through the rain. His heart still tugged at the noise despite it all, and as Jean drew nearer Marco looked down at Claudine with concern and, after sharing a quick glance with Jean to make sure it was alright, gave her a gentle poke.

Claudine’s cries were stifled. She began to wiggle, grunting and complaining that she couldn’t see who had the audacity to poke her, and Jean immediately turned to the side so she could catch a glimpse of Marco. She blinked up at him, her eyes still uncreasing from her crying, but after she seemed to realise who it was she silently reached out one of her hands, the fingers stretching wide in her efforts to touch him. When Marco didn’t move, she made another little grunting noise and stretched further. Marco looked at Jean. Jean didn’t look at him. He reached out and let her wrap her fingers around his index finger. She pulled it close, not caring that it was attached to the rest of him, and waved it around for a moment in her pudgy hand. Marco chuckled, watching her as she brought his finger to her mouth and looked suspiciously up at him, like she didn’t trust him not to disappear. When Marco dared look up at Jean, he saw the same suspicion in his eyes too.

“Jean,” he said, hating how his voice cracked.

Jean opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. He wrestled with the umbrella for something to do – though his hands slipped a few times in his efforts to get it subdued – and only once it was down and secured did he speak. “D-did you get the book I left you?”

It wasn’t the best question to start with, but it was something. It wasn’t a curse. Marco could work with it.

Jean looked dreadful. The dark circles under his eyes had become a permanent feature, standing out stark amongst the sickly pallor of his cheeks and the pink flushes of his nose and lips from the cold. He was skinnier, too, the clothes he wore hanging off him in such a way that it reminded Marco of a boy playing dress up in his father’s clothes. His mouth was drawn in a thin line, his expression guarded, and all Marco could see was the wall that had been thrown up that day on the bridge. The eagerness to see him sputtered and died.

“I did,” Marco said, his voice still very much on the edge of breaking. “I tried to go after you, but -”

“It’s okay,” Jean said, cutting him off. “I… I was an asshole and pegged it out of there.”

Marco swallowed painfully. “Oh.”

Jean bit his lip and looked away, off down the road he’d evidently travelled down to get to Marco’s building, before he turned back. “Y-you’re alright?” he asked.

Marco nodded. “I’m alright,” he said, ignoring the angry twinges from the stitches. “How are you?”

To his surprise, Jean scoffed and shook his head. “How can you ask that?”

“What?”

“How can you ask,” Jean said, his voice beginning to tremble, “if I’m okay?”

Marco blanched. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“You’ve been in hospital,” Jean said. “You’ve been in agony, s-still _are_ in agony, and you… you still want to ask how I am, you still give a shit, after how I…” He broke off, sniffed and looked away again.

“After how you treated me?” Marco finished for him. Jean flinched as though the words were his own knife wound. “Jean, it’s…”

“Don’t you dare say,” Jean cut him off, “that it’s okay. What I said, what I did… it was so many things, but it definitely wasn’t fucking okay.” Marco opened his mouth to protest, but Jean shook his head. “J-just… l-let me…” He wheezed out a breath, a nervous breath, and tried again. “I was scared,” he said, playing with the whorl of hair on Claudine’s head. “I was… so fucking scared, Marco, you have no idea…”

“I know, Jean,” Marco said. He knew what it felt like to hear those words on the lips of someone you cared about, and how those simple little words could bring down far bigger prey than just the person it affected.

“I did a shitty thing,” Jean said, swiping at his eyes with his sleeve. Claudine let go of Marco’s finger and blinked up at her father, a small frown appearing on her face that could have been coincidental. “I sh-shouldn’t have sent that message to you…I tried to d-delete it the moment I sent it, but… but I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it…”

Marco stepped closer, wanting more than ever to reach out but not sure if it would be allowed. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. I should have been honest from the beginning. Maybe then you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did.”

Jean ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Don’t be fucking reasonable with me, Marco, I don’t deserve it.”

Marco frowned at him. He was sure a few people would agree with him. But Marco knew how it looked when caring too much twisted itself into fear. When Thomas had told him about the diagnosis, Marco had shouted and sworn too. He had kicked over furniture and punched walls. The fact that he had done it away from Thomas didn’t mean anything – he’d still felt it. Sometimes things were easier when you were the one going through the horrible thing; the people who were left to pick up the pieces were the ones who suffered the most. He’d realised that when he had been handed his own bottle of pills and a clipboard proclaiming ‘POSITIVE’ in rubber stamped letters. He’d forgotten how being on the sidelines hurt, and it had only been four years. He sighed, and reached out a hand to him. “We were both scared.”

Jean eyed his hand, apparently unsure whether it was a trick or not, but when Marco wiggled his fingers gently, he took it with a tentative frown. “I fucked up again,” he said, almost too softly to be heard. Marco squeezed his hand gently. He felt Jean’s pulse jump under his touch. The movement seemed to shift something inside Jean, because he squeezed back and began to talk a little more steadily. “I read the papers. Hitch called me, told me you were in them. They said you’d broken up a fight, that you’d been attacked when you were stood defending a policeman.” The next few words began to trip and stumble over themselves again, Jean’s hand beginning to tremble in Marco’s. “T-they weren’t sure if you were going to wake up, a-and I was angry all over again. I was angry that you’d gone and done something so _stupid_ b-but… but I knew that it was your way of… of trying to fix something.” Jean bit his lip. “A-and it was my fault, my stupid fault, and…”

“Jean, it wasn’t your fault.” He drew Jean closer, further into the shelter and out of the rain. “I wasn’t thinking straight. Ymir called and I answered. I would have gone anyway. You know I would have.” Claudine sniffled and buried her face in her father’s hoodie, looking up at Marco with large, identical amber eyes. Marco swallowed painfully. “Besides, newspapers are full of lies,” he said, lying himself. “I was going to be fine.”

Jean shook his head. “You can’t say that. D-don’t say that.”  He shut his eyes tight, determined not to let a tear spill from his eyes, but Marco saw one betraying drop trickle down his face and drop from his chin onto the carrier. “You could’ve died, Marco,” he said in a small voice. “You could’ve died, and the last thing I said to you-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marco said.

“Yes it does,” Jean replied, shooting him a watery glare, “because I didn’t mean a word of it.”

Marco’s chest suddenly felt lightened. “You didn’t-?”

Jean sniffled and brought his head up. “No,” he said, his voice still quivering like the tears in his eyes, “I didn’t.” He shut his eyes with a pained grimace in a way that meant he was trying to keep hold of a thought before it danced out of reach, but before Marco could ask what exactly it was he was thinking, the eyes opened once more. Now they were closer, much closer, and Marco could see that Jean’s eyes were bloodshot and pale from lack of sleep - but they were Marco’s galaxies all the same. That was never going to change. “M-Marco…” he began, weakly, then sucked in his breath and tried again. “I know things won’t go back to the way they were. I know that there’s been d-damage done, and if you ever knew how sorry I was…” He sucked in a breath like he was frightened of being deprived of it, and carried on. “I’ve been scared for so l-long, a-and I know that I do things I regret because I th-think it’s for the b-best but…n-not this time. This time I’ve got to be brave.”

Marco paused. The little flutter in his chest started up again with the way Jean looked at him. It was a hungry, yearning sort of stare, and it set something alight in his stomach that had lain dormant for a painfully long time. “Oh?” he said, trying to keep his tone casual.

 Jean didn’t look very brave, at that moment. In fact, he looked small, stood hunched over like he wanted to be forgotten and his tears still dripping into the fabric of his hoodie and staining it dark. His hair was still lank and unkempt, his cheeks still hollow and the shadows under his eyes remained dark and straining. He was shaking. He did not look brave. But the next words out of his mouth showed just how brave he was.

“I love you.”

Marco felt everything stop.

“W-what?”

Jean lifted his head an inch, just an inch, to stare at him. And there was that yearning again, that same desperate, feral look Marco had seen at the bridge, in his apartment when he thought no one was looking, when Claudine laughed and smiled at him for the first time. Marco had misread it as anger or fear, but it was so much more than that. So much better. “I love you,” he repeated, “alright?”

Marco couldn’t find the words – when he did, they came out garbled. “Y-you love-?”

“It’s not a good kind of love,” Jean said, fierce as his eyes. He closed them again, but only to muster up more scraps of courage. “It’s not the sort of love everyone wants. It’s small and it’s ugly and it’s scared, but… it’s something. A-and I know we need to talk about things, I know it won’t be pretty and Claudine’s in the middle and I’m not an easy person to love back, but… but I think I could love you the right way, if you taught me how.” He lowered his head, his bravery all but washed up, but Marco couldn’t hear much beyond the words echoing around his head and the fevered racing of his pulse. “I’m just sorry it took so long to say out loud.”

The flutter that had lived so long in Marco’s stomach exploded, blown apart by the sudden feeling that raged underneath his skin. Jean loved him. All this time, he’d loved him. He’d been scared and angry and he’d made mistakes, but he loved him. Marco let out a small broken sob of a laugh and clapped a hand to his mouth, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

He loved him. He loved him. He loved him.

He let the words swirl around in his head, committed them to memory, locked them away where no one else could see them because this was more than bravery for Jean. He could see that now, as he looked at him. With a baby wriggling sleepily on his chest and a face that appeared haunted, this was Jean’s fear laid out bare before him, pulled out of the place where it had festered and left twitching and writhing in the daylight. And he was waiting for an answer.

“I can do that,” he said, breathless with how quickly he had to say it. “I can teach you how.”

Jean’s eyes flew up to Marco’s, his brow creasing into a frown. He was wondering, Marco realised with a slight stab, if Marco was just playing along or humouring him. Then his face split into a relieved, giddy smile, the kind that made him look his age and sent dizzying spasms into the growing warmth of Marco’s stomach. “You would?” he said, the hope in his voice almost painful to hear.

Marco bit his lip around a smile of his own, a smile that made his cheeks ache and his chest light. “Of course I would. You’re right, we need to talk, and yeah it might take some time but… but I want to try. With you.” He took Jean’s hand again, and looked down at their connection. Jean’s hand, pale and trembling, and his, steady and work-worn. They didn’t fit perfectly; their thumbs knocked together and Marco’s grip threatened to crush Jean’s, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t see it as perfect now – he saw it as _normal,_ and that was better than perfect. He swayed their hands together gently like Jean had done in the restaurant so long ago, his smile daring to widen at the memory. He drew a breath and looked back at Jean, back at the hopeful eyes and the yawning bundle strapped to him. “I love everything about you, Jean,” he said, blinking back tears, “and I’ve not felt like that for so long, I thought… I thought I’d forgotten how.”

Jean let out a breathless little noise that made Marco’s heart jump. It felt like relief, rushing out of him like water in a sink, and he watched Jean’s lip tremble around his smile as he leant down to kiss the top of Claudine’s head and sway their hands back and forth. Jean couldn’t say anything, but he knew he didn’t need to.

When Marco stepped nearer, running a thumb along the soft hair on Claudine’s head, Jean was the one who bridged the gap first. Their lips found each other like blind men, bumping together awkwardly and gently, gently testing the waters. Jean’s lips were coy, unsure of what was allowed and what was off limits, but Marco’s were greedy, chasing after every last breath Jean had to give him. They kissed slowly, consciously, Jean’s hand leaving Marco’s and coming up to rest on his cheek, fingertips creasing ever so slightly in his skin. After a moment Marco’s did the same, and found there were tears to brush away on Jean’s face. Jean broke away for a moment and looked him over, those eyes flickering like embers, before he smiled again. “So I can remind you, and you can teach me.” He let out a weak, watery laugh. “Sounds like a pretty good deal.”

Marco grinned. “Yep,” he said, lifting Jean’s chin up to plant another soft kiss on his lips. “I think so too.”

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, kissing and pausing and smiling and kissing again, but he didn’t care. It was long enough to know they had a starting point, a course ready to be charted, and he was looking forward to seeing where it took them. Claudine let out a sudden cry of indignation and the spell around them was shattered.

As they broke apart Jean took a deep, shuddering breath and Marco let out a splutter of nervous laughter, still stroking Jean’s cheeks and glancing down at Claudine as she complained loudly. “I think you squashed her,” Jean said.

“Maybe she doesn’t approve,” Marco commented, stepping back to rub her back through the material of the baby carrier.

“Nah,” Jean snorted, “I think she approved of you before I did.”

They stood there for a moment still laughing quietly, breathing in warm air and planting small kisses anywhere they could reach, until a familiar string of music tickled Marco’s ear. He pulled away and looked up at the building, the rain now having thinned to a drizzle, and saw that the window of his apartment had somehow been jimmied open. The music that floated down to them was punctuated by a host of rowdy singing that merged into one slurring voice that drowned out the crisp, clean cut vocals of the musicians. Marco felt something snag in his chest when the familiar lyrics tumbled down to them, like feathers on a breeze.

‘ _When I find myself in times of trouble,_  
Mother Mary comes to me,  
Singing words of wisdom,   
Let it be…’

Marco felt the pain spike in his stomach, the way it always did when he thought of Thomas, but this time he had someone’s hand grabbing for him, and a thumb smoothing over his own in a clumsy, concerned way. When he looked back at Jean, he saw something he hadn’t seen in his eyes before. It looked like solidarity. It looked like understanding, if only a splinter of it. It looked, remarkably, like home.

“I’ve always hated The Beatles,” Jean said, offering a weak smile as he rubbed Claudine’s back with his free hand. She was still crying, but it was quieter now, less insistent.

Marco shrugged. “I never minded them.”

“We can listen to them, if you like.” Jean’s hand squeezed his, a shaky little lifeline Marco was more than happy to cling to. “Any time you want.”

Marco glanced at him again, and nodded. “I’d like that.” Jean’s smile came back. “We should go inside,” he added, the song still blocking out the sirens and traffic and angry shouting from fellow residents. “Or else we’ll get another noise complaint.”

Jean nodded, still smiling, and let Marco lead the way inside.

They weren’t perfect. Jean was right; nothing was just going to slot back together the way it had. Jean was still scared. Marco was still HIV positive. Claudine still needed to eat. Thomas was still dead. Eren was still broken. Sasha was still pregnant. The world around them was still grey and cruel, and full of struggles and trials and tears. But with Claudine giggling and burbling more than she had in weeks and Jean’s pale hand in his, promising all the good parts of those struggles, Marco caught himself hoping again.

For the first time since Thomas died, he heard the words ‘Let it be’, and smiled.

For the first time without lying, Marco knew it would be okay.


	22. Epilogue: Some Kind of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's done. The epilogue is finally done, it's almost been a year but I've done it. 
> 
> I'll keep this short and sweet, I'll leave the thanks and things for a chapter note at the end of the chapter, but...for those of you who are still JM trash, this is for you. I hope you like it <3

**Three months later.**

The nightmare was getting worse.

This time it attacked like a gunshot, ripping Marco from his bed and sending him bolt upright with a sharp breath. As the room swam into view, warm and dusty as it always was, he tried to stop his heart pounding quite so much whilst the panic of the dream clung to him like cellophane. The images in his sleep-addled mind began to fade like ghosts as he sucked in breath after godly breath, squeezing his eyes shut tightly with every blink to get rid of them faster. After a few seconds, whatever fear had been pressing like ice against his veins slowly, _slowly,_ began to thaw.

It was one of those rare days when Trost was blessed with sunshine. The rays filtered in through the gaps in blinds and curtains of the houses in nameless streets, warming their grey brick skins and promising a morning they hadn’t seen for the past few weeks. The light that was coming through the dusty and grimed windows cast a simple glow around the bedroom, as though Marco was waking up into a sepia photograph. There’d been a storm, and now it had blown over the city gave its familiar sighs. Marco, as his eyes adjusted and came into focus, tried his best to match them.

Once reality set in, he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and groaned, flopping back onto the bed with an agonised creak. Dreams had always evaded him, turning to soup in his mind before he had the chance to really remember them, but this one was different. He’d known it would come. It had danced at the edge of his mind for so long, jostling for position, that it had only taken a few weeks and his guard to drop and it was forming a repetitive, orderly queue in his subconscious. He crushed his hand to his head again and shuddered out a breath. That time he had felt the grit of the street beneath his hands. He had heard the shouts, seen the rushing blue lights and felt the…

His hand dropped from his face.

The cold steel of the blade as it plunged into him.

Out of habit, he drifted his hand down to his stomach, his fingers probing and testing the tender flesh he found there. No blood. No gaping wound. Nothing but scar tissue and slightly chilled skin under his fingers. He sighed in relief and actually dared to look down at the small pink mark left on his body. The scar didn’t hurt so much anymore, but the muscle was still weak. He had to take things slowly, the nurse had reminded him, but it had been a month since he’d stepped foot in the clinic to be checked over and he’d be damned if he was going back anytime soon.

He reached out, searching for a someone to fill the space against his side, but found nothing. He turned over to look in the corner. Months before, there had been a stack of fruit crates acting as a makeshift chest of drawers. They were now gone, and in its place was an equally weather-beaten but nonetheless well-loved cot. That, too, was empty.

A small alarm went off in his head. It had to be late. Had he slept in again, after all the promises he’d made?

With a sleepy frown and a jaw-cracking yawn, he got up. Throwing the covers aside and rocking onto his heels with a deep groan, he almost immediately had to stop himself from falling over Batman. The cat tangled himself between Marco’s ankles and mewled inquiringly, gazing up at him with his lamp-yellow eyes. “M’fine, Bats,” Marco mumbled, reaching down to tickle him behind his ears. He winced as the movement tugged the scar on his stomach. Batman looked at him reproachfully as he straightened up, clutching his torso. “Go on, shoo,” he instructed, giving Batman a gentle push with his foot. Batman gave him another cold look, and with a flick of his tail he was gone, snaking around the gap in Marco’s bedroom door without a second glance.

“Fickle,” Marco called after him, but the word stuck in his throat. He coughed to clear it, and padded to the door himself.

Every day, he went through the same routine. Most mornings, he would wake up to an empty bed. Every morning, he would wonder if he’d actually just hallucinated the last few months. And every morning, with an edge of panic, he would go to his door and hope against hope that he would see what he saw every time. Today, he was the same; he even had to pause and take a _breath_ , for goodness’ sake. He wanted to blame the nightmare. The nightmare was a good excuse to be nervous. Of course it was.

He stepped through the door and peered out, blinking owlishly in the light that was now unabashedly streaming through the large windows of his apartment. The large windowpanes, rusted from lack of use and ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice, connected and hinged like the bones of a well-worn skeleton, the light from outside breaking apart upon hitting them and casting thick stripes across the floor and sofa. In between a particularly bright beam of light, an easel was propped up. And behind it-

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

Marco’s stomach, as always, settled.

Jean was an early riser; whilst Marco was happy to sleep in on his days off and make every minute count, Jean was out of bed and showered before his second alarm. It was one of the many things Marco had since gotten used to since Jean had moved into the apartment, but getting up early was worth it just to walk in and see him framed in the sunlight. He hadn’t even turned around; he was still drawing his brush against the canvas, blotting out chunks of colour inch by inch as he worked. Marco made his way over, making sure that his footfalls were loud enough for Jean to hear to keep from startling him, and when he was sure Jean knew he was there he put his arms around the skinny waist and squeezed. “Morning,” he mumbled, resting his head against the prominent bone of Jean’s shoulder. “Where’s Claudine?”

“Armin stopped by. He wanted to take her to the park.”

“Oh.” Marco frowned at the blazing sunlight coming from the windows and buried his face in Jean’s shoulders to hide from the glare. “Did I sleep in late?”

“It’s ten o clock,” Jean said, “so not bad.” Marco felt Jean’s free hand drift down and cover on of his, the cold palm soon warming under his slight fever. He felt more than saw Jean frown at the feeling. “You’re burning up again.”

“It’s the new pills. The nurse said they might have side effects.” 

 Jean made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, but Marco felt him lean against him, the paintbrush dropping to his side for a moment as he surveyed his handiwork. It was a cityscape, but all in varying shades of purple and blue. The chunks of tower block and warehouses stretched across the canvas like sleeping giants, and there was something stunning about them that Marco couldn’t put his finger on. Jean had never painted the city before; he had always looked up, painting galaxies or animals that didn’t exist. Now he painted them often, but with always just a hint of the fantastic in them. Marco leaned in close and brushed his lips against the side of Jean’s neck, smiling at the tremor that passed through Jean’s entire body. “It’s beautiful,” he mumbled against the skin.

Jean swallowed painfully. “O-oh?” he all but squeaked.

Marco chuckled. “Uh huh. Just,” he kissed a spot on his neck, “like,” he moved to just behind Jean’s ear, “you.” He finished with a gentle tug at Jean’s earlobe, a spot he’d found a week ago that made Jean’s knees buckle.

As predicted, Jean let out a small whine that had nothing to do with pain, and his grip on Marco’s hand tightened. “I never should have told you about that,” he complained, though his voice wasn’t as hard as it could have been.

“Mmm, I’d have found out anyway.” Marco nuzzled a spot between Jean’s shoulder blades and felt them relax under his touch. He was sure he heard a sigh of relief come from Jean too, and squeezed his waist in reassurance. Jean still had a long way to go; he was still a little nervous, especially when Marco snuck up on him or gave too much attention all at once. Marco didn’t mind – he was patient. He would take whatever Jean was willing to give, and bottle up the memory with a smile and a kiss. It was for this reason that he moved his head back to its place on Jean’s shoulder and asked, “would you like to kiss me now?”

Jean made a flustered noise that also sounded like a “yes” and turned his head to catch Marco’s lips with his own. It was soft, fleeting, but it was a grounding for the both of them. When Jean pulled away, he made a face. “Morning breath,” he complained, batting Marco away.

“You love it,” Marco grinned.

“No, Marco, I love _you_ and there’s a big difference.”

It hurt Marco to grin as wide as he did, leaning in for another kiss which Jean gratefully offered. That was new, too. The word ‘Love’ hadn’t ever been spoken until after the accident. It was shunted to the side and replaced by looks or actions or secretive smiles. Their interlinked hands, swinging together, had meant love. Marco, fixing the observatory, meant love. Jean, giving away his most treasured books like pieces of his soul, meant love. There were so many things they had done, so many times they had danced around the subject, and now it fell from Marco’s lips like rainwater. Jean was different – Jean was careful with his words, placing them in the space between Marco’s neck and shoulder or leaving them to be found on notes he scribbled and stuck in books or Marco’s work desk. Marco loved them anyway, collecting them like talismans and Jean’s smiles like gold.

Once they drew away for breath, Jean raised his brush back up to the canvas. Marco loosened his grip on Jean and slipped away, heading to the breakfast bar in search of coffee. “Do you want anything?” he called over his shoulder.

“Juice,” Jean answered.

“Coming up.” There was a pause as Marco rooted around in the fridge for the offending carton (extra pulp, orange and passionfruit) but when Jean cleared his throat, he turned back. Jean wasn’t looking at the painting anymore. He was looking, with a small frown, at Marco. “Everything okay?”

When Jean set his paintbrush down on his palette, Marco knew that everything was not okay. Nothing stopped Jean painting. Except, apparently, him. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Jean was biting his lip now, the way he always did when he was worried about saying something. “You… you yelled, just before you woke up.” His arms came up to fold across his chest, his concern threatening to split him. “Nightmares again?”

Marco watched him for a moment, and then went back to filtering the coffee and finding glasses for the juice. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “You know, thinking about what happened… mulling it over in your head… it’s perfectly normal.”

Marco scoffed, turning his back to Jean to pour out the juice at the back counter. He didn’t want to show how badly his hands were shaking. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry you had to hear that. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

“I’ll worry about it if I want to.” Jean’s words were a little spiked now, and Marco’s resolve wilted along with it. “I never said you weren’t fine, but the therapist said-”

“-that things take time, I know,” Marco finished for him, turning back with the full glass and a paper-thin smile on his smile. “But it’s okay. I’m okay.” Jean raised an eyebrow. That eyebrow almost finished him.

Jean didn’t look convinced. He moved away from the easel and started to walk towards him, arms still folded and mouth still frowning. Marco noted the oversize shirt Jean had slung onto himself that morning. It was the Spiderman T-shirt. _His_ Spiderman T-shirt. Jean had had his eye on it for a while, and the way it fell halfway down his jogging bottom-clad thighs made Marco certain that he wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.

He reached out for him as he got near, his fingers gripping onto the loose fabric of the shirt like Claudine would if she needed comforting, and drew Jean close to him. They fitted together a little jaggedly, Jean the scarecrow and Marco the Superman, but that just about summed up their lives in Trost. Before he could wrap his arms around him, however, Jean reached lower and pulled his shirt up. “O-hey!”

The warmth of his shirt was replaced by a cold hand. Marco knew what it was looking for. Jean’s hand skimmed down until it found the scar nestled just above his navel. Jean made a thoughtful noise as he looked at it, brows furrowed and lips pursed. “It’s healing well,” he said.

Marco looked down at it too. “Another mark of me being a famous idiot, as Mikasa would say.”

“S’more a mark of you being brave.”

Marco flushed at that. Jean’s thumb traced the shape of the scar over and over, like he wanted to knit the flesh together and keep it unblemished. When he looked up, he was smiling, if only a little. “No blood. No open wound. No alleyway.” Marco tried to look away, but Jean’s gaze held him rooted to the spot. “I’m not going to ask you to change the way you fight this. All I know is that… that you’re not okay right now. But… but that’s okay, because you will be.” He looked away then, the honesty in his voice colouring his cheeks, and finished with a weak, “that’s what I think anyway,” to soften things.

His hand still lingered on the scar, still stroking its tail with his thumb. Marco watched for a while, that single little motion firing so many tingling sensations down his body, and when he looked back he noticed Jean was watching _him_. Jean didn’t admit it, but he’d definitely gained weight since he’d moved into the apartment; there was less of a gaunt, haunted look about him, and his smiles looked more shaded in and defined. When their eyes met and the smile came to life out of the shadow, Marco realised that Jean hadn’t smiled as much before – not when they had first met, back when he had jumped into the river for Jean and Jean had drunkenly told him to stick something up somewhere rather dark. Marco hated to use the word ‘healing’, but Jean was certainly looking better. Like his mile, he looked like he had woken up. With a smile of his own, he pressed his head to Jean’s and kissed him softly and sweetly. “That’s what I think too,” he said, grinning at Jean’s weak scoff.

“Try behaving like you think it, then,” he groused, but the smile was quickly back on his face when Marco bumped their noses together and leaned in for another kiss.

“Ugh, boy kisses!”

Jean jerked away instinctively, his cheeks flaming red and an excuse already brimming on his tongue, but Marco just rolled his eyes. “Sashaaaaa.”

She gave them a saucy wink and tried her best attempt at a saunter – which turned out remarkably like a flirtatious penguin. “Can’t help it when you’re all over him like some sort of sappy Dalmatian.”

Marco raised a brow. “Dalmatian?”

“It’s the freckles,” Sasha said matter-of-factly. “And, big guy, if you had a tail it’d be wagging.”

Marco could feel his face beginning to heat up even as he tried to laugh it off. “Oh, come on Sash’, we’re not that bad…”

Sasha, apparently, wasn’t done. “Oh, you’re that bad. Honestly, have I got to start labelling furniture you two can’t bang each other on, or are we still in the honeymoon period of doin’ it in the bedroom only?”

Jean’s face, if possible, grew redder. He bolted back to his canvas, his ears looking close to blowing hot steam, gabbling something that definitely sounded like, “oh my god Sasha you’re disgusting we’ve not done anything yet shut UP”, but it was said so quickly it sounded far more like a distressed animal. Marco gave Sasha a chiding look, one that she met with a wide beaming smile.

These days, Sasha was doing an excellent impression of a small hot air balloon. ‘Destroyer’ was late, as she liked to remind everyone every five minutes, and Marco was beginning to pray to any gods he could think of that she would give birth soon. He loved Sasha dearly, but heavily pregnant Sasha was a nightmare wrapped up in a Michelin man suit.

As if to illustrate his point, Sasha waddled towards the fridge with a huff of effort, prising it open and shouting, “GodDAMNIT WHY IS THERE NO CHEESE” like Marco had been stupid enough to eat the last of it. He saw Jean inch closer to his easel, cheeks still burning and a sheepish expression on his face, and made a solemn mental note not to tell on him. “Anyway,” she was saying, content with a slice of ham and a small carton of tomato juice, “you two need to start warning me about your cute moments, they could bring on labour due to heart strain.”

Marco looked to Jean for an answer, but Jean shook his head, still looking immensely awkward. “No, it’s not a thing.”

“Thought not.”

“Where’s the sprog?” Sasha asked, attempting to mount one of the barstools and failing miserably.

“Armin took her out.” Marco moved over and slid the barstool out of her reach. “Sash’, you know trying to jump on a barstool is a bad idea.”

“Ugh, since when did you die and reincarnate as my mother,” she grumbled, flapping a hand at him to get out of the way.

Marco shared a pained look with Jean, who ducked behind his easel with a chiding cluck of his tongue. Jean had gotten used to the sparks that flew from Sasha. Now he just found them funny. Besides, he’d seen pregnancy first-hand with Hitch, and Marco assumed that Hitch would have been just as bad – if not worse – than Sasha. After all, she’d been bad enough without a baby inside her. How Jean coped, he didn’t know.

“Marco.” He blinked. Jean was watching him, eyebrow raised.

“Mmm?”

“You’re staring.”

Marco smiled. “Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry.” Jean smiled despite himself though, and _god_ Marco would break cities for that smile. “You need to go take your pills. I took mine earlier.”

Marco attempted to make a pained face, but Jean’s forceful eyebrow raise peeled him away and pushed him towards the bathroom.

His pill pot wasn’t hidden out of sight anymore. That was one of the many things that, though strange to adjust to, had changed in the past few months. Now it was in the medicine cabinet above the leaky sink, the clinical pot replaced with a small clay one Hyacinth had brought for him on her last visit. As he reached for it, he smiled at the cheery design. It was bright turquoise with small peace signs in purple all around it, and the words ‘MARCO’S PILLS’ emblazoned in a slightly wobbly hand around its width. Next to it was another pot, this one the inverse in colour, and Jean’s name in place of his own.

The medication gave Jean a helping hand where Marco couldn’t. It got him up in the morning, kept his panic from spiking, made it so that going outside the four walls of the apartment didn’t feel like a labour of Hercules. He hadn’t wanted it at first; he saw it as weak, like he was giving up and letting mindless chemicals take control. After a well-intended lecture from Armin and a less than helpful talk from Eren, Jean relented. He grumbled and glared, but he took them. After a while, he’d had to admit that they made him feel far more human than he ever thought he could be.

Marco took his pills with a glass of water, gulping away the chemical tang always left on his tongue. The side effects for these new pills were minimal; slight temperatures and occasional dizziness. It was a far cry from the cocktail of pills he’d been prescribed before. The doctor had said that it would take time for his body to adjust to the new medicine, and for a while Marco was certain it was all some sort of mistake and he was actually getting poisoned. Once his body had stopped throwing its tantrum, however, things evened out. He got back on track. The days of fever never happened, nor did the throwing up every few days. Maybe his pills made him feel a little more human too.

He was in the process of putting his pot back on the shelf when Jean shouted from the living room, “Marco!”

He very nearly dropped it with the volume of the shout. It sounded urgent. Before he could set the pot back the right way up, Jean shouted again. “MARCO, GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW.”

Marco abandoned the pot on the side and flew out the door.

A thousand thoughts came bumping into his head; Armin has lost Claudine, Eren had relapsed, Ymir was in the living room bleeding and barely conscious… they all attacked at once, in a fraction of a second, and knocked the breath out of him with their implications.

When he skidded back into the living room, however, he wasn’t met with either of those things. Jean had his arm around a heavily groaning Sasha, and Marco’s heart plummeted.

She was breathing heavily, her hand clutched tight to her straining belly, and as she caught Marco’s eye her own become wide-eyed and pleading. “Marco,” she whimpered. Jean looked up too, and the relief etched in his face was almost as strong as Sasha’s.

Marco blinked. “What’s-?”

But then he stopped. He took in Sasha’s hand on her belly, the phone in Jean’s sweaty hand and the puddle on the floor between them. Puddle? Realisation dawned on him. “Oh, please tell me that’s water,” he said weakly.

Sasha almost sobbed. “I h-had stomach aches last night but I thought it was the s-spicy f-food, and I th-thought it was the ham j-just now, it l-looked okay b-but…” she cut herself off with a sudden howl of pain. She grabbed for the nearest thing at the precise moment her knees buckled, and Marco flew to her side. The nearest thing, however, was Jean. Sasha gripped tightly onto his arm and twisted. Jean yelped, which was apparently the absolute wrong noise to make. “Oh, _I’m sorry_ , are you in _pain_ right now?!” Sasha hissed. She tightened her grip on his arm as she leaned on him, and he couldn’t bite back the yelp.

Jean glowered at her. “Shit woman, just warn me next time!”

The look Sasha shot him was one that suggested she really wanted to step on his foot. “Okay, next time I have a contraction I’ll squeeze your balls and then _you can feel some pain!”_

“Ooookay, no one is grabbing anyone’s balls,” Marco said, grabbing the phone from Jean’s grip that happened to be his own and punching in the number he’d had memorised for the past two weeks. “You’ll be fine Sash’, just keep breathing, I’m calling the midwife.”

Sasha groaned and twisted her wrist around Jean’s arm, who looked as though he would have much preferred if the whole thing was simply ripped off and handed to her. “Call Connie,” she rasped between breaths. “Don’t…wanna…talk…to her…”

“I’m calling the midwife, Sash,” Marco repeated, hoping he wouldn’t have to argue with her. “We need to call in to see what we need to d-”

“I WANT CONNIE,” Sasha burst out, twisting Jean’s arm so tight his face blanched. He didn’t dare yelp again.

The midwife wasn’t picking up. Marco hung up and called again, panic flooding through his system. What would he do if she didn’t pick up? Would Sasha have the baby there and then? Could she take a trip to the hospital? How far was she gone? Was this actual labour? Every time he’d put off reading the maternity books Hyacinth had posted to them flashed through his mind. “We’ll call Connie in a minute, Sash, I promise.”

Jean however was fishing his own phone out of his pocket with a free hand, and after dialling a number jammed it between his ear and shoulder. Sasha was weighing him down on one side, still calling for Connie and breathing like a racehorse, and as whoever he called answered Jean almost lost his balance and sent them both to the floor.

“Hello? Hi, Sasha’s gone into labour. Just now.” His voice was remarkably calm for how terrified he looked, his brows furrowed in concentration as he listened to what was being said on the other line. “Her waters just broke, I don’t know anything else, now she’s just mumbling and groaning. I guess they’re contractions, they look like they’re hurting a bitch. She’s… of _course_ I don’t know how much she’s dilated, I’m not sticking my hand up there, do you want to come check?” A pause. “Fuck, I don’t know, _we_ don’t know, can we just take her in?” Another pause. “Thank you.” He hung up.

“Did you get through to the midwife?” Marco said, relieved.

“No,” Jean replied, gently prising Sasha’s hand off his arm and replacing it around his shoulders, “I called Armin.”

Marco gawped at him. “Why can ARMIN help!?”

“I don’t know! I just panicked! I mean, uh, he’s got a car, and we need a car,” Jean answered, looking slightly manic. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

Sasha groaned. “I don’t want a hospital, I want Connie.”

Marco moved to her side and took over, the hand squeezing Jean’s arm off quickly transferring to his own. “I know, sweetheart, I know.” Jean took the opportunity for freedom and bolted down the hallway to Sasha’s room, no doubt to pick up the overnight bag she’d had packed for weeks. “I’m gonna call him soon, just keep breathing nice and slowly, and squeeze my hand whenever you feel a contraction okay?” Sasha nodded wordlessly, her breathing changing from short sharp pants to long, drawn out gasps. “That’s it,” Marco said, encouraging her. “Keep going, you’re doing great.”

“H-how do you know I am?” Sasha asked.

Marco paused. Well. He hadn’t expected an actual response. “I guess I don’t. It’s what they say on TV,” he tried.

Sasha, far from shouting and swearing at him, just chuckled weakly. “You’re…ugh…such…a dingus...”

“So long as I’m a dingus that gets to keep his genitals after this then I’ll be happy with that.”

“It’s…a deal…”

“And be nice to Jean. He’s trying.”

“Mmph…I’ll…try…”

Jean chose that moment to burst in with Sasha’s overnight bag swinging wildly from his shoulder and a small bag. “Okay, I got your overnight bag and your handbag, I didn’t know whether you wanted the canvas one or the leather one but I found your purse in case you need it and you have way too many bags why do you need that many-”

Sasha gave Marco a wide stare. It was a ‘please give me strength’ stare.

Jean clearly noticed it. “N-not that I was being sexist!” he blurted. “B-bags are good! Bags are always useful and-”

“H-hand them o-over, you goon,” Sasha said through gritted teeth, reaching out a hand for it.

Jean, however, held remarkably firm. “No, you’re not holding anything. Marco and I have this, you just focus on getting out of the building, alright?”

Sasha’s lower lip trembled. “You’re…you’re being so nice…I told you I’d squeeze your balls…”

Marco gave her side a gentle nudge. “C’mon Sash, let’s get you downstairs. Armin’s on his way.”

Marco stepped out of the apartment with Sasha wedged between him and Jean. She was breathing heavily and trying to both clutch her belly and have her arms slung around their shoulders at the same time, and neither option was really working well. “Sasha, stop fidgeting and let us hold you up!” he heard Jean snap to his right.

“Don’t shout at meeeee,” Sasha groaned.

Marco manoeuvred them over to the lift as a single unit, and then saw the ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign stuck haphazardly onto the call button. Jean was staring blankly at it, as though if he looked hard enough it wouldn’t be true. Fate was truly giving them the middle finger. “Guess we’re taking the stairs,” Marco said. He hoped he sounded more confident than he was.

Both Sasha and Jean gave him looks that suggested they really didn’t think it was a good idea at all, but unless they had an elaborate winch and pulley system, there was no other way. They began to move. The descent was slow, with Sasha elbowing Jean in the head repeatedly as they walked in an attempt to reach her straining belly, and Jean biting back hard on whatever insult or curse he wanted to spew out. Marco bore the majority of her weight, and though he liked to think of himself as strong, by the fourth flight he was struggling not to cling onto the rail and pivot her around like a ship’s rudder.

Once they got to the ground floor, Sasha sagged against him, panting. “Never… _ever_ …make me do that again…” she wheezed.

“Me neither,” Jean chimed in, rubbing the side of his head where Sasha had elbowed him. “Come on, Armin will be here by now.”

The accompanying honk that came from outside verified it.

Marco, Sasha and Jean burst out of the apartment doors as the battered white Mini Metro screeched to a halt and nearly flung Armin and his passenger through the front window. Marco stopped dead.

Wait.

Passenger?

“What’s up, fellow gays?” A familiar head was stuck out of the window as Armin mounted the kerb, the Metro complaining loudly with a creaking grunt, and as the odd coloured eyes glinted at them, Marco felt Jean tense beside him.

“Eren, what the hell are you doing here?”

Eren ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “Here to witness the miracle of childbirth. Couldn’t give Sasha all the fun, could I?” He paused. “I was also bored, so. There’s that.”

“What the hell, we need seats in the car, shithead,” Jean snarled from underneath Sasha’s armpit.

Eren’s eyes narrowed as they landed on Jean. “When I want your opinion, asshole, I’ll ask for it. Who says _you_ need to be here?”

“Eren,” Marco said, adding the warning to his tone.

Before Eren had the chance to say anything else, Armin forced the car door open and tumbled out, his hair dishevelled and eyes already rolling. “Eren, please shut up, I don’t want to take Sasha to maternity and you and Jean to A&E.” Eren flushed a little, but let his mouth snap closed. With a final nod, Armin turned back to Sasha and adopted the calming therapist tones he used at the community centre. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’m trying to squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a lemon,” Sasha panted, “so…in a word…fantastic.”

Armin blinked at her, thrown by her honesty. “Uh…right. Best get you inside then.” Without another word, he guided Sasha over to the car with a hand resting in the small of her back.

As they got closer to the car, Marco noticed with a sigh of relief that Claudine was strapped securely into the carseat Jean had given Armin that morning. “Hey Princess,” he cooed at her from behind Sasha. “Busy morning, huh?” At the sight of him, Claudine burbled a little greeting and waved a hand the way Eren had taught her. Her hair was now tickling the bottom of her ears, ash blonde like Jean’s, and shook her head as her fringe fell into her eyes. Sasha sobbed out an “aw” as she bundled herself in and Claudine made a valiant effort to pat her companion on the head.

Marco realised now that there was only one seat left. A seat that both he and Jean had to fit onto, somehow. They looked at one another for a moment until Armin rolled his eyes. “I’m not getting pulled over because you’re sat in each other’s laps. One of you get in the boot,” he said, popping the catch. The ‘boot’ in question looked as though it would snugly fit a large terrier inside.

Marco glanced at Jean, who looked as keen as he felt. “Toss a coin for it?” he tried.

“JUST ONE OF YOU GET IN THE FUCKING BOOT RIGHT NOW BEFORE I PUSH THIS BASTARD OUT IN THE BACKSEAT,” Sasha screeched from the back seat.

“I’ll go,” Jean said in the same breath, practically diving into the boot in his eagerness to avoid the shouting.

Marco peered down at him, frowning as Jean tucked his knees in and crossed his arms to avoid knocking his elbows on the boot as it came down. “Are you-?”

“Let him be a gentleman, Marco!” Eren shouted from the front, though Jean’s scowl seemed to say otherwise. “Just get in the back with PregZilla.”

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL ME.”

“Getting in.”

Marco fell rather than got into the Metro, yanked rather forcefully by a swearing Sasha, and the moment his door was slammed shut the old car wheezed into the fastest 0 to 40 it had done in about ten years. Marco was flung back against the headrest – his rookie error for not fastening his seatbelt in time – as Eren whooped with glee. “Step on it Armin!” he yelled, propping his legs up on the dashboard. “We got a baby to deliver, punch that shit!”

“Get your legs down!” Armin shrieked, batting Eren’s knee with panic. “If I stop suddenly your legs will break!”

“It huuuuurts,” Sasha wailed.

Marco ignored Eren and Armin’s squabble and leant over to take Sasha’s hand. “You’ll be fine,” he said, hating himself for using such a fake, fill-in word. “Keep breathing evenly, like the nurse taught you. In through your nose-”

“-out through my mouth, I know,” Sasha snapped, but she squeezed his hand tight as the Metro bumped along the road and Marco knew she was grateful. “ _SHIT,_ you are so lucky you don’t have a vagina.”

He wasn’t sure whether Armin had been listening or not, but he timed a sharp swerve at a roundabout eerily perfectly in response. The force threw everyone off balance, and Marco heard a loud ‘THUNK’ and a sharp, “FUCK” from the boot. Marco immediately flung himself backwards to peer over the back seats. “Jean? Are you alright?”

“Ugh, I’m…fucking…chipper,” Jean groused, rubbing a sore spot on his head. “Thanks for asking.”

Marco huffed and reached down to clumsily entangle their fingers together. Jean, after a brief attempt at ignoring the wiggling fingers amid being bashed around in the small space, relented and reached out in return. Their fingers fumbled together, but another bump made them fall away. Marco offered a smile, which Jean shyly returned. A sudden loud burble from Claudine broke the spell, and Jean shuffled onto his stomach to inch nearer to his daughter. “Hey, what’s going on Princess?”

Claudine blinked owlishly at the sight of her father looming up at her from behind a usually empty space, but after a few blinks and a confused “bluh?” of noise, she was giggling at the sloppy kiss Jean landed on her cheek.

“You have it…so fuckin’ lucky,” Sasha said in Marco’s ear, pulling his attention back around to her. Right. She was in labour. Focus. “You got a baby _without_ the pain.”

Marco laughed. “She’s not mine though, is she?”

“Might as well be.” Sasha turned to watch them too, still puffing out breaths and readying herself for the next wave of pain to crest.

Marco looked too, and couldn’t help smiling. Claudine was patting Jean’s cheek with gentle squeaks of delight (patting was Claudine’s Thing for the week) and Jean was trying to chase her hand to press gentle butterfly kisses to her palm. Whenever he caught her, Claudine would squeal louder and accidentally cause Armin to break the speed limit.

It was nice to see; behind Marco’s door, or in the company of friends, Jean never stopped acting like Claudine’s father. It was so obvious he doted on her that it physically hurt sometimes to be in the room with them. There was just something about the bond they shared, a bond Marco hadn’t seen for months, that told him no matter what Hitch had intended, Jean would not have given Claudine up to her. The sheer amount of _love_ Jean had for Claudine wasn’t something he flaunted for everyone to see, but there was a definite reason why Claudine laughed so much nowadays. Jean being happy meant Claudine was happy. They were just that connected.

“S’not fair,” Sasha mumbled, drawing Marco’s attention back again. “She’s so beautiful, Marco. And so good.”

“Takes after her father,” he answered, loud enough for Jean to hear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jean blush and retreat behind the seats despite Claudine’s offended noises.

“What if my baby’s ugly?” Sasha asked. The tension on Marco’s hand warned him that the wave Sasha had been waiting for was starting to crest. “What if it’s secretly evil? What if it’s plotting world domination in my womb?”

“Sasha-”

“Oh god what if it looks like a deformed chipmunk?”

“Sash-”

“Mum always said I looked like a deformed chipmunk when I was a baby, I was an ugly baby, oh god I can’t-”

“Sash’, have you looked in the mirror lately?” Eren cut in from the front seat. When he got no answer, he slung himself around and raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “You’re hot as fuck. Also, have you seen who you banged to get this sprog?” Sasha glowered at him, but Eren kept going. “Come on, he may be a dick but Farlan is the most bangable man in existence… sorry Armin.”

“No, you’re right, he’s chiselled by gods,” Armin agreed, swerving to narrowly avoid a honking van.

“There you are.” Eren beamed at her. “And like I said, you’re not bad yourself, I mean if I had to pick a chick-”

“Owwww Marco Marco Marco Marco,” Sasha chanted, her knuckles turning white in his grip. “C-c-cONTRACTION.”

Armin chose that moment to step on it. The Metro’s engine complained loudly, choked out some black, acrid smoke, then began to slow. Everyone, even Claudine, went quiet.

“Uh… Armin?” Came Jean’s voice, tentative and unsure. “Please tell me we’re either there or stuck in traffic.”

“Oh god,” Armin said hollowly.

Jean took a breath. “What… does that mean?”

Marco knew the answer already. The vibrating rattle from the Metro was gone. It was still moving, but there was nothing driving it. And they were slowing down, the cars behind honking and overtaking them in frustration. “No, no, no, no,” Armin said, the word his own calming mantra as he punched the gas again and again and turned the key in the ignition. The Metro ignored him, coughing out more smoke and cruising to a standstill. Armin angled towards the pavement, the Metro gave one final splutter, and it moved no more.

“NO NO NO NO NO.”

“Armin…” Sasha’s voice was wheedling up to a pitch that would make dogs wince. “Wh-what’s happening?”

He took a deep, steadying breath. Everyone in the car braced themselves. Marco looked over the backseat and wondered if he could make a timed jump into the boot with Jean. If not, a timely evacuation wasn’t a bad idea either. Armin mumbled something in between his chants of ‘no’ that had to strain to hear. “Ithiwemighabroendahn.”

“What?” Sasha asked.

“I said I think we might’ve broken down,” he said, wretchedly.

To Sasha’s credit, she remained remarkably calm for longer than Marco thought she would. Sasha gave them a gracious six second silence (Marco counted) before she screeched, “ARE YOU _FUCKING_ SERIOUS?!”

“S-Sasha please calm down…”

“I’M NOT CALMING DOWN I HAVE A BABY IN ME AND IT WANTS TO COME OUT AND WE’VE BROKEN DOWN.”

“It’ll be fine,” Armin said, freeing himself from his seatbelt and spinning around in his seat. “We’ll call a taxi, they can-”

“She’s in labour!” Jean shouted from the back. “No taxi’ll take her!”

“And we have the vote of confidence from Mr Ray of Sunshine over there,” Eren commented drily.

“Shut the fuck up Eren.”

“I WANT CONNIE,” Sasha shrieked at a volume that made almost everyone clap their hands to their ears. Marco, unfortunately, didn’t have the option; one hand was still locked in a tight grip with Sasha’s, and the other had been fumbling for the door handle.

Armin was looking Sasha over in a flurry of panic, his eyes darting from her face to her belly and back again, his mouth opening and closing as they tried to form any words that he thought might help things. Marco shook his head when a sound did manage to get out, and Armin let out a short curse and left the car, slamming the door so hard the whole thing rattled like a tin can. Eren followed soon after, crying out a sharp, “Oi get back in the car I don’t have insurance,” before the door eclipsed all noise.

Then it was just Marco, Jean, Claudine and Sasha, one of whom was screaming and crying and the others were looking bemusedly at one another. Sasha was panicking now, her breaths breaking and crashing as she tried to keep them steady and failed. Marco was mute. He couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to do. The sudden realisation of _nothingness_ that invaded his head sent a flash of panic through him, and even as he tried to call an emergency number his fingers slipped and failed on the buttons. He was shaking. He was so scared he was _shaking._ What on earth was he going to do?

Jean had peeked his head over the back seats now the car wasn’t moving, and as he looked over Sasha, Marco noticed his brows furrow. “J-Jean?” he managed to force out of his unyielding lips.

Jean took a deep breath. “Get me out of the boot.”

“Wha-?”

“Get me out!” Jean gave the rear window a sharp kick to get Armin’s attention. The moment the boot opened, Jean flew out and wrenched the door open on Claudine’s side. “Okay, so we need to get Sasha comfortable,” he said, unbuckling the car-seat from the seatbelt and prising Claudine free, car-seat and all. “Sorry Princess,” he added as an afterthought, bundling her into the front seat and re-buckling her with shaky hands. “You need to get out of the way.”

Marco watched dumbly as Jean then slammed the front door shut, ran over to the other side of the car and started talking to Armin excitedly, his hands making wobbly shapes in the air as he did so. Marco focused back on Sasha, who without prompting had scooted back so that she was now propped against the left hand car door, eyes clenched tightly shut as she tried her best to ride out the pain.

“M-Marco, they’re… they’re coming quicker now,” she whimpered, twisting her head from side to the other like she was fighting off something invisible. “D-don’t go…”

“I won’t go anywhere,” he promised, though every inch of him wanted to do exactly that. What was wrong with him? He’d faced down people in alleyways, got into fights with random strangers for the sake of something that didn’t matter to him – why was Sasha in labour the one thing he couldn’t handle?

Then he felt someone beside him. The smell of paint, subtle and small, made him turn to look as Jean stared up at Sasha, calculating something. Before Marco could open his mouth, Jean said, “Sasha, you’re going to have to take your sweatpants off.”

Sasha cracked open one eye to gawp at him. Marco joined her. “Wh-what are you saying?” she asked.

“I said you need to get your sweatpants off. And…” Jean gulped. “And, uh, everything else. O-on the bottom.”

Sasha huffed out an agonised laugh. “A-at least buy me dinner f-first, Kirschtein.”

Jean’s face went scarlet. “L-look, we don’t think the baby’s going to wait. How often are you getting contractions?”

“Mh…too often…”

“Take a guess.”

Sasha opened both eyes at that. By the way she stared at Jean, it was obvious that she knew that she was getting them too quickly. Even if she wasn’t ready to push, her body definitely was. There wasn’t going to be a hospital.

Marco didn’t like the way that the floor of the car was rippling. “Oh God, are we really doing this here?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.” Armin was behind him. When Marco turned, he saw a phone jammed under Armin’s chin and furious chatter coming from it speaker. “I’ve got a midwife on the phone.”

“If it’s Hanji tell her she fucking SUCKS.”

“No, Sasha, I won’t tell her that.” Armin glanced at Marco. “Eren’s got Connie on the phone. He’s letting him know where we are.”

Sasha was gazing up at the roof of the car, her chest still rising erratically. Marco squeezed her hand gently in an attempt to get a reaction, but all she did was mumble, “I’m going to be talked through giving birth by two gay couples and a terrible midwife. Have any of you even SEEN a vagina before?!”

“Yes!” Jean and Marco said at the same time Armin mumbled, “not exactly,” and Eren added, “I saw one in a book once.”

Sasha whistled through her teeth and rested her head on the car door window. “Great, _now_ I’m relaxed.”

“Sasha, sweatpants?”

“Oh my God, just pull them off!”

They all looked at one another. Eren and Armin, still with phones stuck to their ears, looked like they would rather do anything else. When Marco glanced at Jean, his cheeks were so red he was surprised he hadn’t passed out due to a blood rush. “Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, gently easing his fingers from between Sasha’s and pulling the sweatpants down. At any other time, he was sure slipping clothes off of someone wouldn’t make him feel queasy, but as he threw the offending clothes haphazardly over his shoulder and heard Eren’s squawk of alarm as they landed on the pavement in front of him, he knew there was no way in hell he would ever want to do this again. When he made to move back, Sasha’s furious eyes stopped him. “What?”

“And the rest!”

Oh God, he was afraid of this. He wetted his lips and looked back over his shoulder at the others, who were all standing in a semicircle around him. “I…uh…don’t want to,” he said in a small voice.

“Oh my _god_ it’s not going to bite you!” Sasha hissed, howling as another contraction started to crack and splinter through her voice. “You…saw…enough…of…Mikasa…to…know…”

“Ooookay, no one needs to hear that Sash’.”

He was pretty sure he heard Eren mutter, “flirt,” as he hoiked up Sasha’s top and peeled her underwear off. He glanced – just once – and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Oh my God.”

“What? What is it?”

“I… I think I can see the head.” Now he really did feel sick. Whoever said that this was meant to be a magical, captivating moment clearly hadn’t ever met Sasha. Or lived in Trost. Or had a car die on them on the way to the hospital.

“Oh God,” Armin said from behind him.

“Out of the way.” Jean gave Marco a gentle nudge, but Marco needed no persuasion. He knelt on the floor of the car, grabbed Sasha’s hand again and vowed not to ever look down in that direction again. He did, however, watch the way Jean’s eyes bulged as he caught sight of Sasha. “Oh, fucking _hell._ ”

Armin shouldered his way next to Jean, the voice still gabbling on in his ear. “The midwife wants to know if we’ve got her comfortable?”

“I’m in a fucking CAR,” Sasha retorted. “How comfortable does she fucking think I can be?”

“We need blankets,” Armin said, looking lost. “I don’t have any-”

“Shirts will do.” Suddenly, Marco found a hand shoved into his face. “Give me yours.”

Instinctively, Marco looked down at his shirt. It was slightly baggy with an old band logo on it that he hadn’t listened to in years. He wasn’t sure why he still kept it, but the thought of using it forced up something defiant in him. “Why mine?”

Jean’s mouth drew into a fine line, like he was arguing with a toddler. “Because I said so.”

“What about yours?”

Jean looked down at his own. It was still the Spiderman shirt, the one that he’d stolen from Marco. He replied, a little bashfully, “I like this shirt.”

Marco gestured at his chest. “I like _this_ shirt.”

“I AM GOING TO STRANGLE BOTH OF YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS,” Sasha screeched.

Marco was going to argue back at Jean, but then he noticed the clenched look to Jean’s jaw and let it drop. “Fine,” he said, “but you owe me a new shirt.”

“I’m sure Formula Ice Dragons will truly miss your support,” Eren butted in.

Jean glared over his shoulder at him. “I don’t know why you’re smiling, we’ll need yours too.”

Eren genuinely looked as though Jean had asked him to give up a beloved pet. “This is vintage!” he complained.

“Is that what they told you?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Armin snapped. He gave the phone over to Jean and stripped, his skin goose pimpling with the cold almost immediately as he laid his shirt in front of Sasha. When he looked over at Marco and nodded, Marco knew he had no hope of keeping his own shirt. He shed it with a feeling of distinct loss – he knew he would never be able to wear the shirt again – and passed it over.

Jean took it gratefully and laid it on top of Armin’s, smoothing out the fabric as best he could. “Okay, now what?” he said into the phone. His face went blank. “Are you sure? It looks pretty-” He stopped himself. More chatter. “Okay, well you’re the expert.” He handed the phone back to Armin and turned to Sasha. “O-okay, well, uh, you’re going to have to start pushing.”

Sasha’s mouth dropped open. “Wh-what?”

“You’re going to have to push. I’ll tell you – well, the midwife will tell me when to tell you to stop. I think.”

“Wow, you are _really_ filling me with confi-UGH.”

Another contraction. God, they really were coming faster now.

Marco dived for her hand the same instant she started to push, and immediately got his fingers crushed. Suddenly everything whirled back to the forefront of his mind; the day Farlan had left, slamming the door and never opening it again, Sasha going to the pharmacy a week later because she had a bad feeling, one of the longest nights of Marco’s life since Thomas when he had sat on the other side of the bathroom door listening to Sasha crying. She didn’t think she could be a mother. She didn’t think she had a chance. Farlan was gone and she felt adrift, with no one to cling to but the boy who had taken her spare room with more emotional baggage than actual baggage.

It came down to now – and Marco wasn’t sure he was ready for it, let alone Sasha.

He fought down the rising sickness and lifted Sasha’s straining knuckles to his lips, kissing them softly. She was doing fine. She was doing okay. The baby was going to be fine. Marco didn’t say any of these things aloud – there was no point, he’d said them all over and over like some sort of spell and they hadn’t helped so far – but telling himself that it would all end well was more comforting than it perhaps should have been. Sasha lolled her head against his and groaned, their combined hands shaking with the force of her push. Marco bit back the pain and glanced down at the others. Armin looked like he was about to faint, Eren was cringing and Jean was gabbling helplessly into the phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear.

“Oh g-god, it’s coming, the head’s coming!” he said, and Marco distinctly heard Eren whisper “oh, _gross_ ,” under his breath.

“Owwww I’m never doing this again as long as I fucking live I need drugs I need painkillers I need SOMETHING,” Sasha howled.

“I know you do,” Marco said, “and you’ll get everything you want at the hospital, just keep going. Don’t give up. You can do this.”

Sasha stopped for breath for a moment, her pants coming short and fast, and then she started to push again. “That’s it!” Jean was saying from the car door. “The head’s almost out, you’re almost there.”

Sasha gave one last push and something large and slippery fell into Jean’s waiting arms – and immediately started bawling its tiny lungs out. Armin snatched the phone from Jean’s shoulder, and gabbled to the panicking midwife on the other end that it was too late, that the baby had already come, but Eren didn’t move a muscle. He just stood gawping at the wriggling, squealing shape in Jean’s arms, open-mouthed. “It looks like an _alien_ ,” he said, with equal parts awe and disgust.

“O-of course it does, it’s covered in gunk,” Jean replied. He was breathless. “Oh… _Jesus fuck,_ g-get the t-shirt wrapped around it, Jaeger, c’mon, I can’t do it by myself.”

Sasha collapsed against Marco’s shoulder, her breathing edged with soft, relieved sobs. Marco brushed her hair out of her eyes and felt like crying himself. “Well done, Sash’,” he said, pressing his lips to her sticky forehead. “Well done, you did so well.”

“Still hurts,” she moaned.

“It will hurt,” Marco said, hoping that was true. “But we’re going to get you to a hospital, and they’ll check the baby over. You’ll get looked after there.”

“Dunno… _nnn…_ you guys…weren’t so bad…” Sasha tried out a smile, but it shrunk into a small open-mouthed sigh as the crying reached a higher volume. “Is that… is that my baby?” she asked, her eyes shutting with the effort of staying open. “Is it alright?” she said, her voice wobbling up and down like the dial on an earthquake detector.

Marco didn’t know what constituted ‘alright’ in baby terms. It had to be breathing to be screaming so loudly, and it was wriggling too; Jean and Eren were fighting between each other to wrap it in Marco’s ruined shirt, and for a while Marco was sure the baby was winning the fight. “Yes,” he said, knocking his head against Sasha’s with a giddy laugh, “it’s fine Sash’, it’s okay.”

The crying had to be a good sign. No crying meant that there was a blocked airway or something else equally serious (Marco had read up on that, at least) but there was still a part of him that felt sorry for it; it sounded lost and furious at this noisy new world it had been born into, and even when Jean and Eren subdued it and wrapped it up tight like an infuriated pink burrito, it didn’t stop bawling.

“Is it…” Sasha struggled to sit upright, but lost the fight halfway up and slid back down. “Is it a girl? Is it a boy?”

“Boy,” Eren declared, grinning from ear to ear. “And _what_ a boy, he’s got a gigantic –”

“That’s the umbilical cord, you pillock,” Jean replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry _Nurse_ , not everyone knows the ins and outs of babies.”

“Ambulance is almost here,” said Armin, appearing from the front seat. “And a breakdown team. Not that anyone cares. I don’t know why I said that,” he added quickly when he was faced with a forest of incredulous looks.

The baby had stopped crying quite so hard now, its small face still scrunched up in defiant anger, but as Jean brought the bundle closer to his chest the struggling stopped altogether and the cries snuffled into barely a whimper. When Marco stared, Jean shrugged. “T-they like warmth,” he defended.

“Can I hold-?” Sasha asked. She sounded far away and slightly delirious from the pain, but after a shared look between the two of them, Jean slowly uncurled the bundle from his arms and handed it shakily over to Sasha. The baby started crying again, deprived of the warmth it had found against Jean’s chest.

Sasha’s voice crumpled as she copied Jean and rested the bundle on her chest. “H-Hey there,” she said softly, shifting it slightly brushing a thumb against the small, still gooey curve of its head. “Hey, Destroyer,” she added, laughing weakly at the sudden reality laid out in her arms. “Nice to finally meet you.”

It was then that the ambulance chose to arrive. It screeched to a halt in a blur of blue flashing lights, and as though a spell had been broken, Jean wrenched himself away from the car door and vanished. Marco, on the other hand, took the opportunity to free himself from where he had been wedged between the floor of the Metro and its door. He very nearly fell out, straightening up at the last minute and regretting it when his foot exploded in pins and needles.

“Elegant dismount,” someone commented.

Marco knew exactly who that someone was. Eren was stood with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his acid wash jeans, the jacket he had been wearing nowhere to be seen.

“You try getting squashed in Armin’s backseat and we’ll see how you end up,” he quipped.

“Tempting though that offer is, I’ll pass.”

Marco grimaced and tried to stamp the white noise out of his foot – which actually did more harm than good – and limped to the other side of the car to get Claudine out. She blinked up at his approach, but as he unclipped the straps and pushed them aside she reached up for him, her fingers wiggling in their anticipation to grab and hold. Marco’s heart melted there and then. He plucked her out of the carseat gently, and Claudine began to kick and squeal in excitement. “Hey, take it easy,” Marco chided, but under Eren’s watchful gaze he rested her on his hip and manoeuvred his way over carefully, stepping out of the way of the paramedics rushing to Sasha.

By the time he reached Eren, the attention was no longer on him. Eren was eyeing the men and women bolting in and out of the ambulance, everything about them professional and alert. Marco predicted the way Eren’s hands coiling into fists before it happened, and gave him a gentle nudge with his shoulder. “Hey, stop staring at them like they’ll explode. They’re doing a good job.”

Eren twitched. “I know,” he retorted, “I just… don’t exactly have a good track record with paramedics.”

Marco grimaced. He knew that more than anyone. There was a time when he had the private number of one particular paramedic on speed dial, just in case. Sadly, it had been well used. “Well, they’re not here for you this time,” he said, jigging Claudine up and down on his hip when she started to get restless. “You’ve gone past all that.”

One of the paramedics, a small blonde woman with a severe expression, paused to stare at them. A flicker of recognition seemed to go through her eyes as she looked at Eren, and Marco felt him step closer out of habit. “Fuck, I need a cigarette,” Eren muttered.

“No, you don’t. You told me you’re quitting.”

“You should know by now that I say stupid things and make dumb decisions, Marco.”

Marco rolled his eyes and leant back against the road divide, Claudine clutching onto him like a small koala. He’d managed to forget about his lack of a shirt until the thrill of cold up his spine gave him a particularly harsh reminder. He shivered. “It’s meant to be summer,” he complained.

“That’s the Trost curse for you,” Eren replied. “Here, take this. They gave it to me for some reason.”

Marco glanced down at what Eren was holding out to him and recognised the fluorescent yellow and metallic shine to be a shock blanket. He took it and, with a bit of Claudine-jostling and shifting, got it wrapped around his shoulders. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Eren looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he hesitated. Marco followed his gaze, glancing towards the car where the small assembly of people were helping Sasha and her baby out of the coughing Metro. “Christ,” Eren hissed, “that was…”

“Something?” Marco guessed.

“The most disgusting shit I’ve ever had to experience was my suggestion, but sure, ‘something’ works too.” Eren sighed and folded his arms. “I don’t think I ever want to go through that again.”

Marco chuckled. “I don’t exactly think you’re one to talk, Eren. You’re not the one who gave birth.”

“Still. That is the first and last time I see a vagina, that shit’s fucked up.”

Marco snorted. “Oh, the miracle of childbirth.” His gaze swept the length of road, taking in the backed up cars and Sasha’s relieved face when the paramedics gave her something to help with the pain. In the moment, it had felt like the whole thing had taken days, but the reality was far shorter than that.

Claudine tugged on a long strand of his hair as if to remind him she was there, and as Marco turned his head to nuzzle her pudgy cheek, the shock blanket rustling noisily, Eren said, “Jean’s over there, if you were wondering. Which I know you were, ‘cus you’re obvious as hell.”

Marco looked up just in time to see Eren point to a spot just underneath a road sign. Sure enough, there Jean was. He was stood on his own, his already pale skin turning a milky blue under the light of the ambulance. “Backed right off when the guys in green turned up,” Eren commented. “Looks a little traumatised, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.”

“And yet you still value my wondrous input in your daily life.”

“What would I do without it?”

Eren snorted, but the humour fell away from him quickly. They both watched Jean for a while, though by how heavy Claudine was becoming Marco was certain that she was falling asleep on him and he’d have to move away to put her down first. Jean was pacing a little, walking around in a tight circle with a hand seemingly stuck in his hair. A twinge of concern went through Marco’s system, and he cleared his throat. Eren got there first. “You know, that was pretty cool. What he did today. How he helped Sasha.”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed, eyes still on Jean. “Yeah, it was.”

Eren popped his lips. “He’s… he’s a good guy, you know?”

Marco smiled. “I know.”

Eren quirked an eyebrow at him, a smile twisting its way across his face. “You’re champing at the bit. Want me to keep an eye on Claudine so you can check on Dickmancer?”

“Please stop calling him that.”

“You said I couldn’t call him that to his _face,_ not that I couldn’t do it behind his back.” Eren held out his arms for Claudine. “C’mon, give me the baby.”

Marco rolled his eyes and slowly prised Claudine free. He regretted it immediately; her little body had been warming him up like a small space heater, and now she was gone he was shivering again. “W-where’s your jacket?” he asked.

“Armin,” was Eren’s reply. Of course. It wasn’t like Marco would be able to wear it anyway; it would have been far too small. “Go on, go see what his deal is. He should be celebrating the fact he did something useful.”

Marco gave him a smart clip around the back of the head that Eren could do nothing about due to Claudine. Marco moved aside before Eren could change his mind and try to whack him anyway, and made his way over to where Jean was stood.

Jean wasn’t looking at anything in particular; his eyes were cast down, boring holes into the pavement as he continued to pace just outside of the chaos. That was the place Jean preferred to be; just to the side of the storm’s eye. His hands were still in his hair, the bloody smears on his jacket showing where he’d tried to scrub them clean, and as Marco got nearer he could see the way they shook uncontrollably. “Jean,” he murmured. 

No matter how softly he said it, he knew Jean would jump. And he did, whirling around with a wide-eyed, deer in the headlights sort of expression.

Marco threw his hands up in surrender. “Sorry.”

Jean swallowed painfully, but Marco noticed his hackles going down slowly. “N-no, it’s… it’s okay.” His circuit of pacing had been broken with Marco’s interruption, and instead of pushing past and carrying on he just stood there, trembling. It was like a warning light had been switched on inside Jean that was telling him to run – or at least get as far away as possible – and Marco was a little afraid to get too close.

He tried anyway. He reached out and touched Jean’s arm, and felt the twitch ricochet through his own body. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Jean scoffed. “S-stop asking if _I’m_ alright, God. You should be asking Sasha, she’s the one who just squeezed a baby out.”

“Sasha’s safe,” Marco said, “so now you have my undivided attention.”

Jean snorted weakly. “I’m blessed.” The sarcasm, oddly, felt too watered down to be real. “What’s that thing, a superhero cape?”

Marco looked down at his shock blanket. He swept it out a little, grinning to himself. “Nah. I’d go for a less garish colour, I think.”

“Hmmph.”

Marco stepped closer and rubbed Jean’s arm, his brows drawing together at just how hard Jean was shaking. The trembles were like small earthquakes, splitting the boy they wracked into fragments and bringing him back together again in the same breath. “Jean, look at me,” he said, soft as he could manage.

Little by little, the shakes steadied themselves and Jean could bear to look him in the eye. Marco felt a little jolt when he saw just how alert and blown out Jean’s eyes really were. “I’m sorry,” Jean said first, throwing Marco a little. “I… I shouldn’t make this about me, I shouldn’t be so…”

“What do you mean? Jean, you were amazing back there.”

Jean’s mouth snapped shut. He looked away, the muscles in his jaw working nervously. “No I wasn’t.”

Marco frowned. “You were. That was incredible.”

Jean shrugged. “I just listened to what the midwife was telling me on the phone. Sasha’s right though – she is awful. She sounded more panicked than Sasha.”

“You were very brave.”

Jean flinched at the word as though it was an insult. “Are… are you joking?” he said, his voice tinny.

“What do you mea-?”

“I was terrified, Marco.” Jean was looking at him again now, his eyes wide and ringed with panic. “I’ve not been that scared for a long time, shit I mean… what if she’d lost the baby? What if she got hurt, or we lost Sasha or-”

“We didn’t,” Marco urged gently, pulling Jean into a one armed hug. “You kept it together. I couldn’t do anything but-”

“I was so scared,” Jean mumbled, as though he hadn’t heard him. “I was almost as scared as when Claudine was born.”

Marco peered down at him with a degree of interest stirring – Jean had never spoken about Claudine’s birth before. The scene came to his mind quickly; Hitch, screaming the place down and crying the way Sasha had, Jean trying to do anything to help and being nudged aside by doctors and midwives. Had Jean been pushed aside so much that he was left stood outside the delivery room, pacing back and forth the way he had in front of the blue ambulance lights? Had Hitch refused to let him touch Claudine at first, or had she shoved the bundle of screams and tears into his arms and looked in the other direction? Marco felt a chill rush through him as he wondered, bitter though it was, if that was the moment Hitch had started to hate him.

He shook the thoughts aside and focused on Jean, though he knew his grip had gotten a little tighter despite himself. “It’s okay to be scared,” he said, suppressing a shiver as the wind picked up around them. “I didn’t have a clue what to do, Armin nearly fainted and Eren’s about as much use as a-”

“I know.” Jean sighed. “I just feel… useless. Like when the paramedics came, I realised what I was doing. This… this fucking _nasty_ feeling just came slamming back into my gut and…” He wriggled free of Marco’s grip and wrapped his arms around himself. “…a-and I noticed the blood on my hands.” Jean’s face went the colour of slightly spoiled milk at the thought. “Oh, g-god, there was so much blood.”

And then, to Marco’s horror, Jean’s legs almost gave out.

“Jean!” Panic flared in Marco’s stomach, the same barbed kind of panic he hadn’t felt in three months, and his arms immediately flew to Jean’s waist, keeping him upright as he looked him over. The blanket slipped from around his shoulders but he barely noticed. “T-take it easy!”

Marco should have been used to thinking clearly. He could push things aside, sort them into categories that consisted of ‘okay’ and ‘not so okay’ and think through things calmly. But at the sight of Jean looking close to collapse, all attempts at organised thought were ripped up and thrown out of the window. Every single answer flitted past his eyes like a flock of birds, not close enough to grasp fully. He patted Jean down, searching for something, _anything_ that could tell him what was wrong. He couldn’t find any injury. He couldn’t see _anything._

Jean felt heavy as a stone against him; his head had flopped onto his chest like there was no muscle left to hold it up, and he was blinking slowly and stupidly. _Shit shit shit._ “It’s alright,” Marco said, trying his best to be soothing as he rubbed a hand between his shoulder blades. “Come on, love, just breathe, it’s okay.”

Such a simple instruction seemed to be about as easy for Jean as a Labour of Hercules. He gasped for air like he was trying to breathe underwater, his stomach jolting with every breath. Marco pressed small circles into Jean’s back as he rubbed, looking up and calling for one of the paramedics to turn around and help him. “Help! Someone! Please, my boyfriend, something’s not right!”

None of them looked over. Marco might as well have been a scruffy, jacket-clad lamppost for all they cared. Giving them up for a lost cause, Marco tried the next person who popped into his head. “EREN,” he roared.

Eren appeared at his side in a multi-coloured whirlwind, his eyes raking over Jean’s doubled over, wheezing body. “Fuck, do you have eyes in the back of your head?! I just handed Claudine over to Armin, no need to get so…” he squinted. “What the fuck is wrong with _him?_ ”

Marco resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Eren was as eloquent as ever. “I don’t know,” he answered, pressing small circles into Jean’s back with the heel of his hand. “He just… started going a bit faint.”

Eren looked as though he was about to make some sort of inappropriate comment, but the look Marco shot him quickly killed whatever insult had been creeping to his lips. “Okay, well uh… shit, why did you call me? I don’t know anything, you should’ve called over Armin!”

_Shit. He probably should have called over Armin._ “I don’t know! I panicked!”

“You are the person who _shouldn’t_ panic!”

“I can’t always be the calm one, Eren!”

“Okay.”

Both Marco and Eren stopped talking. Instead, they peered around at Jean.

He was still sucking in lungfuls of air, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but Marco was feeling a hint of resistance from Jean’s body. He stepped back and watched Jean wobble, but slowly straighten up. Jean blinked slowly, as though he was trying to figure out where he was after waking up from a long sleep, and when he passed his glazed eyes over Marco and Eren, he gave a pained nod. “Okay,” he repeated faintly.

Marco blinked at him, pulling his small shock blanket back over his shoulders. “O-okay?”

“Okay.” Jean nodded again, reassuring himself as much as he was reassuring the others. “I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m-”

In one remarkably fluid motion, Jean threw up.

* * *

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not.”

“Well, it is a bit gross…”

“Oh _fuck,_ I’m so fucking sorry.”

In hindsight, Marco probably should have known the warning signs. He was, after all, a veteran at that sort of thing – enough to know what ‘about to be sick’ looked like as opposed to ‘mortally wounded’, at least. He blamed the last few hours for his lack of foresight. Maybe then he could have avoided the trajectory of Jean’s frankly impressive aim. Eren, on the other hand…

Jean groaned into his hands. “I can’t believe I was sick on you.”

Marco rubbed his back in an attempt to be comforting, but all it did was make Jean groan louder so he gave it up as a lost cause.

They were sat on the familiarly uncomfortable plastic chairs that only seemed common in classrooms and waiting rooms. Armin had vanished to speak to his insurance company and Eren had gone on a quest for food, leaving Jean who refused to look at anyone and Marco willing anyone to do the exact opposite and take pity on him for, once again, having no shirt on. His shock blanket, sadly, wasn’t spared from the wrath of Jean’s stomach.

Marco probably wasn’t the first shivering topless man the nurses had seen that day, but it was probably the first one who was sat in the visitor wing of the hospital. To his disappointment, everyone seemed to be ignoring him as though he were a lunatic in a corner. A lunatic with a boyfriend and a baby. Claudine was sleeping soundly in her car seat, a fact that the both of them were likely to regret later on when she refused to sleep for the night. They were both too tired to care. Marco shivered and leant back in his chair, eyes threatening to droop at any moment.

What stopped him was the dark mass snarling in the pit of his stomach. Trost General Hospital was the sort of lingering baggage Marco never seemed to be able to shake. Every time he thought he’d shaken it loose, it came straight back to drag him back to its double doors and too-white corridors. He felt like, if he succumbed and let sleep take him, he would wake up in the bed he’d been in after the stabbing months ago and everything since then had been nothing but a strange fever dream. He glanced over at Jean and thought that, whatever the outcome, it was a beautiful kind of fever dream.

His fond expression faded as he saw the way Jean was hunched over, small enough to be passed over by the nurses and doctors who walked the halls. He was quiet. Eerily quiet. “Honestly, are you okay?” he asked, realising that was probably the first question he should have asked.

A muffled noise came from behind Jean’s hands that didn’t sound like a disembodied complaint.

Marco raised an eyebrow. “Wanna run that by me again?”

Jean peered at him from between his fingers. “Eren’s never gonna let me live this down, is he?” he asked, somewhat wretchedly.

Marco thought about lying, he really did. “Well, you threw up on both him and me…”

“Ugh.”

“And then on a paramedic…”

“Ugggghhhh.”

“And then almost passed out.” Marco paused. “So, uh, no, probably not.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Jean pulled his shirt up to his ears and stayed that way.

Marco couldn’t help laughing at Jean’s sulky expression poking out from above his shirt collar – just a small laugh, the kind that wasn’t mocking but affectionate. It was a laugh he reserved for Jean, most days. Jean was right to sulk; Eren didn’t need much ammunition to gun down someone’s reputation, it was true, but Jean had pretty much handed him a grenade to detonate at will.

The two of them had formed a sort of cautious friendship once Jean came back into their lives again; cautious because Eren knew exactly how to rile Jean to the point of homicide, and friendship because Jean could see how much Eren meant to Marco. Plus, he let Eren spend time with Claudine, which was not a typical honour. Of course, now Eren had perfect blackmail material, it was probably in Jean’s best interest to find something to balance things out.

His stomach still churning, Marco stood up and began to walk around the waiting room, his shoes loud and intrusive on the polished floor. He didn’t come to this side of the hospital very much; he was used to the side with diluted smiles on the doctors and a chemical stench masking the miasma of suffering bodies. His side of the hospital was where anxiety and fear for the future hatched and crawled into his mind without an invitation. This part was so different – the people were happy. They were screaming and hugging and crying, granted, but never in the bad kind of way. Marco’s old ward signalled the end of a road, but this ward was merely a new signpost. Perhaps that was what Marco needed; a new direction, after so much time convinced he was reaching a dead end. Plus, the cheery stork and baby mural behind Jean’s head certainly helped to cement the lighter feeling in his stomach.

When he turned back to his chair, Jean was looking at him. The shirt had come down from his face now, his brow furrowed in thought, and before Marco could ask what was going on in his head, Jean told him anyway. “The last time you were in this hospital was the day you got discharged.” It wasn’t a question. Jean knew the answer anyway.

Marco gulped back the cold shiver that wanted to steal through him. “Yeah,” he nodded, “it was.”

Jean nodded. “And are you alright?”

The little creature in his stomach roared with pleasure. Marco shuddered. “I-it’s fine, really-”

“It’s okay if you’re not. I’m not feeling great myself.”

Marco blinked. “What do you-?”

“This was where Claudine was born.” Jean got up from his seat and ran a hand through his hair, making him look as though he’d been electrocuted in very specific places. “Feels…weird being back here. Feel like how I did last time. Confused, scared shitless, wondering why _I_ wasn’t feeling the way the other Dads were.” He shrugged. “I didn’t feel right. And being back here… makes me feel like that again.”

Marco sighed, and as Jean grew closer he was happy to rest his head on Jean’s shoulder and steady his breathing. Jean tentatively pawed at his hand in a silent question, and Marco answered by threading their fingers together and squeezing, ever so gently. “Things are weird,” he admitted, turning to plant a small kiss on Jean’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re here with me this time.”

Jean wrinkled his nose at the attention. “Fat lot of good I am, I’ve thrown up on you and got your cape taken away.”

“It’s a shock blanket.”

“Sure.”

A small warbling noise came from Claudine, and Jean pulled away. Marco had the feeling Jean had wanted to talk some more, and was almost grateful for Claudine’s distraction. “You’re awake then, Princess?”

Claudine was blinking back the last remnants of sleep, watching the two people standing above her with a haughty expression. After finding that she was strapped in tight, she started to wriggle and bleat in annoyance. Marco looked to Jean, who shrugged. “Hey, the hospital’s probably the only place she won’t get germs.”

Marco crouched down and began to unbuckle the straps of her carseat, amid frowns and grumpy babbling. “Come on, let’s get you out of there,” he said. “But you better behave, young lady.”

Claudine allowed herself to be picked up and propped on Marco’s hip, a place she was fast becoming familiar with, and started to look around the waiting room with an air of the same haughtiness she had given them moments before. Marco jigged her up and down with a smile. “Hey, sweetie, you missed the show. Your Dad gave a _great_ performance.”

It was Jean’s turn to frown. “Hey, don’t talk shit about me to her.”

Marco, with a teasing grin, ignored him. He jiggled her a little more, causing a gleeful squeak to burst out of her, all frowns forgotten. “You missed Daddy throwing up allll over Marco and Uncle Eren, yes he did.”

“Don’t tell her that, she’ll think it’s socially acceptable.”

“Silly Daddy,” Marco continued, gently tickling Claudine’s sides to get her laughing, “but we still love him, don’t we?” He glanced back to see Jean in the process of turning a very tasteful shade of pink.

Claudine made a gleeful noise that sounded like, “da da ma ma muh,” which didn’t fail to melt Marco’s heart.

“That’s right,” he said, and she giggled at her inclusion. “We love him lots and lots don’t we? Even when he steals Marco’s shirts to wrap babies in.”

“Oh my _god_ let it go, I’ll get you a new shirt!”

Marco was still laughing (and trying to avoid being smacked in the arm) when the cavalry arrived. The herd of five stampeded in like wildebeest, pushing and shoving and arguing. Marco relaxed at the sight of them, despite the scandalised and worried glances the nurses were shooting one another at the rabble, and he caught Jean crack a smile too. Claudine started to wriggle, and once Marco was sure the door to the waiting room was shut, he set her down on the floor.

Eren’s jacket looked a lot puffier than usual, but before either of them could ask it had been unzipped and opened wide for all to see. “Tadaa!” Eren crowed, proudly showing off his haul of what was unmistakeably the entire contents of a vending machine Marco had passed on the way to the waiting room half an hour earlier. He was missing a shirt thanks to Jean, but it looked as though he’d managed to coerce someone into letting him borrow their jumper, which almost fell to his knees. “Machine malfunctioned,” he explained gleefully, shaking the edges of his jacket to dislodge a few loose chocolate bars. “Tonight, we feast!”

“I caught him kicking the living daylights out of it,” Mikasa said, appearing from behind Eren and offering a severe, teacherly look in his direction. “Sometimes, I swear that out of the both of them, the machine was winning.”

Eren gave her a pained look. “Mikasa, why must you ruin my street cred every time?”

“You have no street cred to ruin, sweetheart.”

“Hey!”

Marco grinned as a shirt and jumper came sailing through the air towards him, thrown by a rather impressive underhand. He ignored the fact that the shirt was slightly too small and the jumper smelt like cats from where Batman had sat on it; he just wanted to be warm. “My saviour,” he groaned as he wrestled them both on.

“That’s my name, Twinkle, don’t go wearing it out.” Ymir elbowed Eren out of the way in the playful-yet-threatening way she always did, her hands shoved deep in her coat pockets.

She offered Marco a small, calculating glance, the kind that asked how he was without saying anything. When he offered her a smile, something in her eyes quietened. A delighted cry caught her attention, and she looked down to see Claudine tapping her way towards her, proudly showing off her crawling technique. Ymir blinked at her. Claudine burbled something unintelligible. In one smooth motion, Ymir sank to her knees in front of her. “Hey there, wee bairn. How’s it going? You got your skates on today. Keeping these two scruffballs in check, are you?”

Claudine’s mouth split into a wide grin, and Ymir leaned closer to be patted reverently on the head like it was a personal blessing. “Ba da ba buh,” Claudine said.

Ymir nodded solemnly. “You live your best life, kid.”

Her decision to slump on the floor seemed enough of a signal for everyone to get comfortable; they surged forward and followed suit, sprawling on the remaining chairs or flopping down on the floor beside Ymir and Claudine. Marco saw Marlow, his mohawk freshly buzzed, frisk Eren for a packet of Skittles and then stick the whole bag in his mouth to stop Eren snatching them back. Christa, a rare appearance, sank onto the chair next to Jean and squeezed his hand with a gentle smile. Mikasa was the one who dropped down beside Marco and cuffed him playfully over the head for doing something as stupid as helping Sasha give birth in a car.

Marco grinned despite himself, and butted his head against Jean’s shoulder. Jean hesitated, then turned his head to plant a small kiss on Marco’s forehead. The motion was simple: their family was here. They could relax. Marco hadn’t really done that since Sasha’s waters had broken, and now his body felt sluggish and heavy with the weight of relief that it was no longer _his_ burden to bear alone, his wick alone to be burnt down to nothing. Now, they could share the flame.

There was one person, however, that was missing. “Where’s Connie?” he asked.

“Armin took him to see Sasha,” Eren yawned, spilling his trove of chocolate, crisps and sweets over the floor before settling himself next to Marlow – to Marlow’s immense disgust. “He was in an exam when we were calling him. The dumb idiot won’t stop apologising.”

“What did she say when he turned up?”

“An awful lot of expletives, mainly.” Heads turned to see Armin standing in the mouth of the waiting room. His hair was stuck on end from where he’d been running a hand through it so much, and he looked close to dropping with fatigue. But he was still standing, miraculously, and smiling. “That and she wants to put Farlan’s… well, there was a tenderiser involved, you can get the picture.”

The group gave a collective wince. “Christ, if I was Connie I’d run a mile,” Ymir muttered.

Jean had a different question. “Are they both okay?” The light-hearted chatter died down. “The baby, Sasha, are they – I mean, are they stable? The paramedics were all over them when they got to the road.”

Marco was hit with a sickening déjà vu; the lot of them squashed into a corridor and ignoring the nurses’ judgemental stares and tuts; everyone worried about Sasha, and Connie confessing in a flood of tears to people who knew he loved her all along; Marco, sat scared to death of the ward beyond and Jean’s observatory kiss still burning on his lips. He’d asked the question then, the one everyone wanted to ask and couldn’t bring themselves to. He’d been the brave one that time – this time, it was Jean. His eyes were the ones that were wide and desperate for news on someone he hadn’t known a year ago. Marco reached for his hand and noticed that Jean had been reaching for his too. Sasha wasn’t just Marco’s housemate now, not just Marco’s friend – she was _their_ friend. Jean’s gaze, scared though it was, never fell from Armin. Marco gave his hand a squeeze. _I’m proud of you._

Armin cleared his throat and everyone seemed to lean forward. “Sasha lost a lot of blood,” he began, “so she’s very weak.”

Marco stopped breathing.

“But she’s stable, yes.”

He breathed again.

“And the baby?” Jean pressed.

Armin smiled. “The baby is perfect.”

Ymir let out a loud cheer that startled Claudine and caused a break out of nervous laughter. It occurred to Marco that they had all expected something to go wrong; living in a place like Trost stopped them believing that something so difficult could go so well. There were more questions fired at Armin, all of which he dodged in order to sit cross-legged on the floor beside Eren. When they still didn’t desist, he slumped onto his side, and then led out on the floor with his head on Eren’s knee. Eren looked as though every single one of his Christmases had come early. “I’m really sorry, but I’m so tired. The insurance company are going to call me back later, can you just… wake me when they call?” he mumbled, his eyes dropping without permission anyway.

“But what about the _bairn_?” Ymir all but shouted in his ear.

Armin scrunched up his nose and cracked open a fatigued eye. “It’s a boy. Sasha hasn’t decided what she’s going to call him yet. Connie’s trying to talk her out of ‘Destroyer’.”

“Well, that _is_ a good, strong name…” Christa considered.

There was a mumble of agreement, but Armin’s face suggested that _he_ didn’t believe Destroyer to be a suitable name. _Spoilsport,_ Marco thought with a grin, keeping an eye on the way Claudine was batting Ymir’s knee with one pudgy hand.

He wasn’t sure how long they all stayed there, slumped underneath the mural of the cartoon stork and the cheerfully waving baby. Hospitals had a funny knack of making time go fast or slow, but never in between. Days or weeks might have passed and Marco wouldn’t have known. Sooner or later, he was beginning to think that the stork had it in for him and the baby was just mocking him.

He woke from his reverie by a fuzzy vibration next to his leg. He frowned, knowing full well that his own phone was in the opposite pocket. It was Jean, then, who fished it out of his pocket and brought it up to his face. Everything in him seemed to tense, something that sharpened Marco’s suspicion. “Shit. I, uh, I have to get this,” he said, letting his fingers trail through Marco’s as he stood up. He didn’t look back. He walked all the way to the door and around the corner before Marco saw the Jean-shaped silhouette bring the phone to its ear.

“What’s up with him?” Mikasa asked.

It was exactly what Marco was thinking. “I don’t know,” he mused. “He seemed fine this morning.” Thinking back, though, made him doubt.

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs neatly underneath him as Claudine, having grown bored of patting down Ymir, made her way around the room at surprising speed. Her small hands slapped loudly on the polished floors, and the noise seemed to give her the determination to go faster still. She couldn’t have cared less about Jean pulling a vanishing act, and as Marco scuttled after her on his hands and knees, he wondered if that meant it was really worth worrying about. He let the doubt sink down to the seabed for now. It could wait. Jean would tell him in his own time.

He scooped Claudine up around her middle before she could reach the waiting room doors with a cry of triumph, swinging her around to face the others and shuffling back to where the chairs stood, with Claudine complaining and squirming all the way. He blew a raspberry on her belly, loud and wet, and the grumbles soon turned into more gleeful giggles and shrieks. He was in the middle of blowing further raspberries when a nurse emerged from behind the double doors – and promptly stopped dead at the sight that greeted her.

She clearly wasn’t sure what to make of it all; Marco, sprawled on the floor mid-tickle of Claudine, Mikasa with a sharp suit and pinched expression straight from work, Ymir looking as though she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards then challenged it to a fight, and Eren with his small mound of sweets and chocolate. The only remotely normal looking ones were Armin and Christa; even Marlow looked shifty. In a split second, she seemed to understand; she asked, “are you all here for Miss Braus?” in such a way that suggested she really hoped they weren’t.

“Yep,” Ymir said, reclining on her palms and tipping the nurse a heavy wink. “Ain’t she the lucky one?”

To Marco’s endless amusement, the nurse turned a soft shade of pink. “Well, um, as she’s stable and the baby’s fed successfully, you can see her if you like.” She finally addressed the chocolate pile Eren was sitting in the middle of. “Are they from the vending machines?”

Eren lifted his head high. “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.”

 “SASHA LOVE WE’RE COMIN’!” Ymir hollered, and as though it were a mighty battlecry, everyone made for the doors. Marco scooped Claudine up just in time to avoid a boot in the side from Marlow, and Eren had completely forgotten that Armin was almost asleep on him, and had jumped up without warning. As Armin stood up, groggily rubbing his soon-to-bruise chin amid Eren’s strea of apologies, the nurse tried to restore order. “P-please, keep the noise down!” she protested feebly as Ymir pushed past her into the corridor. “New mothers and babies need peace and quiet!”

“You’ll be lucky,” Marlow muttered.

Marco rolled his eyes, reaching down to pick up Claudine’s empty car seat. Claudine herself seemed aware that this was an important moment, for she had gone very quiet and was peering at everyone with a small, incredibly Jean-like frown. “I’m sorry, we helped deliver the baby. Everyone’s a little excited.”

The nurse gawped at him, forgetting her professional persona for the moment. “All of you?!”

“What? Oh!” Marco laughed. “No, just my boyfriend, Eren and I. Eren’s the one with the-”

“The sweet mountain, yes.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose you heroes better get going. She’s in room 105.”

“Sweeeeeeet,” Eren chorused. “I hope the baby looks less like a Xenomorph now. That shit is giving me nightmares for a long time.”

“Sure it’s not just where it came from?”

“Shut the fuck up, Freudenberg.”

As they all trumped out of the waiting room Marco offered the hassled young nurse a smile, and made a mental note to donate to the Benevolent Nurse’s Fund that Christmas.

* * *

Sasha was waiting for them.  As they crashed into her room in a tangle of limbs and car seat, she actually had the audacity to laugh at them. Her sweatpants and shirt had been swapped for a hospital gown, and though she was nestled against the fort-like constructed of pillows around her, she was still quaking with laughter at their entrance. Connie was perched on the bed beside her looking less amused: hassled-but-happy was the best way to describe how he looked, and as their eyes met Connie beamed so proudly it made Marco grin by proxy.

Nobody was really paying attention to anything except for the small bundle nuzzled against Sasha’s chest. Now she was in a crisp white bed and not in an old car, Sasha looked so much younger. The bed threatened to swallow her in its vast landscape of pillows and blankets, and if she was small then her baby was nothing more than a barnacle on a rock in comparison.

“It’s… so _small_ ,” Mikasa said.

“Yeah that really is a small-ass baby,” Ymir agreed, albeit less gently.

“Is he feeding well?” Christa asked.

“Does it hurt when he bites your boob?” Eren asked, less eloquently.

Sasha snorted. “Wow, you guys really ran all this way to see me get my boob out and insult my baby? Best friends ever.”

“Couldn’t pick better ones,” Connie agreed.

It was at that moment the baby chose to move a little, and everyone seemed to lean just that little bit closer to the bed. From where Marco was stood, close to the door from where they’d wedged themselves in, he saw the baby turn his head and open his eyes. Two dark, tiny marbles blinked up at Sasha, the paper-thin mouth opening soundlessly just to try it out, before he tried to turn over and look at the forest of faces gathering around him. Though the baby did have the look about him of an old man doing an impression of a prune, he had a round, chubby face with delicate ears like Sasha’s that made him acceptably adorable, and as Sasha beamed down at him and tucked his blanket under his chin, he made a small snuffling noise and let his eyes slide shut again.

“He’s beautiful, Sash’,” Mikasa said, and Marco could tell she meant it.

He reached over and took Sasha’s hand, smoothing his thumb over the parts that weren’t bruised from the drip that had clearly just been taken away. Her heart was still racing, jumping like a frightened rabbit, and when he looked to her for answers she shook her head. “It’s okay, they said I’m going to be a little up and down with the adrenaline. Don’t go worrying yourself, big man.” She smiled again, but this was more reserved, more thoughtful. Though everything was shifting back to normal, the gears that had been juddering out of place now returning to their rightful places, something spun in a different direction. Sasha, when her laughter stopped and the humour left her, was a small girl in a large bed again, with something in her arms that changed everything. It was scaring her. Marco could see it.

He leaned over, making sure Claudine was shifted out of harm’s way, and planted a small kiss on Sasha’s cheek. “I’ll always worry about you, but I know you can handle it.”

Sasha grinned at that, dropping Marco’s hand to draw her arms tighter around the baby, _her_ baby, and that was it. She was a mother. Marco could see it.

A knock at the door made them all, baby included, jump. Maybe it was the nurse, asking them to leave because there were far too many of them in the room? Frowning, Marco passed Claudine to the nearest person (it happened to be Ymir, to her horror and Claudine’s delight) and opened it.

He was met with a flash of tawny eyes before they flitted down to the floor, and the ash-blonde hair that was raked through and ruffled by steady fingers. Relief, heady and warm, rushed through him. “Hey,” he said, unable to keep the fondness from his voice and still having to remind himself that it was okay to show it. “You found us okay.”

Jean set his mouth in a fine line and nodded. “Asked one of the nurses,” he mumbled. “Didn’t need to bother, could hear Jaeger’s gob from a mile away.”

Marco snorted. “Sounds about right. What took you so-” His gaze wandered down, and he promptly stopped talking. Because, clutched tightly in Jean’s arms and wearing a painfully cheery expression, was a small powder blue teddy bear. Along with the cheery look it was giving Marco, it had a small blue bow around its neck in the same colour and ‘My First Teddy’ sewn onto its foot. Jean refused to look at him, his cheeks blazing with embarrassment, and Marco reached out to wiggle one of the bear’s feet. “Who’s your friend?”

Jean shrugged, the bear jiggling with him. “Just saw it and thought the baby might like it,” he mumbled, though now it looked like a decision he deeply regretted.

“What is it?” Eren called from further inside. “What has Kirschtein got?”

Marco raised a brow, silently asking, and Jean rolled his eyes and gave another loose shrug that meant more than it seemed. Marco put an arm around him and steered him into the room. Everyone was looking at them. Marco felt Jean hesitate for a moment before stepping inside and gently brushing him off. He held the bear to his chest like a shield, as though its bright eyes and soft tummy could deflect the stares he was getting.

Marco gave him a little nudge and Jean took a few more steps closer to the bed. Sasha was staring the hardest; from him to the bear and back again. Jean audibly gulped, but Marco’s smile spurred him on.

“I, er, got the baby this. I…uhm…” He glanced back at Marco, and after getting an encouraging nod he continued, “I always wanted to get Claudine one of these when Hitch was in the hospital, but she… Hitch didn’t want me to, said it was tacky, but I really like the idea of babies having something to cuddle with, so uh… I mean, you can chuck it if it gets ratty or gross or if he tries to eat its ear or something but…um…er…”

He was twirling the bear around in his hands as he spoke, so quickly that Marco was sure it would be dizzy if it were alive, and eventually Jean just gave up and held it out to Sasha without another word, his face closely resembling a stop sign and his eyes fixed almost directly onto the floor.

For a moment, no one moved. Then, Sasha patted Connie on the arm and asked, “Could you hold him, please?” Once she’d passed the baby over and settled him comfortably in Connie’s arms, she shuffled closer to the bed and pulled Jean into a tight hug, bear and all. Marco was sure it was Eren who incited the cheer that rose up from them all when Jean, after a panicked few seconds of flailing, inched his arms around her and hugged her back.

Jean wasn’t a massive hugger; he was all bones and angles and awkwardness, but with Sasha holding him he got softer, the edges all smoothed out until she pulled away and wiped her eyes, the bear sitting on the bed beside her. Jean even cracked a smile when she punched him in the arm and complained that he was being, “too damn adorable for someone who’s seen me fully dilated”.

Marco smiled along with them all, but he was finding it harder to hide the sense of foreboding that was threatening to squash his lungs. It had started since they’d walked in the room, though he’d tried his best to ignore it. It was the steady beep of machines that was doing it; the sight of cables and wires and tubes made him feel sick to the stomach _._

_I have to get out of here._

He quietly excused himself, casting a small glance to Jean and deducing that he would be fine. He felt Mikasa and Eren’s eyes on him as he slipped out the door, but no one followed him. That was fine. He didn’t know how he could explain what he was feeling, anyway.

He wandered the hallways in a sort of daze, trying to push down the memories that were surging up to bite, but once his chest began to feel like it was closing up, he knew it wasn’t going to work. He made for the stairs – and kept climbing. He took them slowly, offering paper-thin smiles to the nurses, but once they were gone he let the smile drop. It was the dreams; he could see them now, replaying like a piece of crumpled film in his mind. Something kept triggering them, a particularly sadistic part of his brain firing off the dreaded scenes like a horror movie as soon as he closed his eyes.

He only stopped climbing when a big red door signalled him to. His stomach gave a particularly bad jolt, and Marco reached for the handle. He didn’t care that the door had a very stern ‘ROOF ACCESSIBILITY: STAFF ONLY’ sign emblazoned on it. He knew from experience where this door led. He’d been out here before. Back when Thomas was dying in his hospital bed, and he couldn’t look at him anymore. Back when he’d felt like a coward, and needed somewhere to go that didn’t involve monitors or doctors. Marco shuddered, shaking the thoughts loose like a dog with water. After looking both ways and making sure no one was watching, he opened the door and stepped through.

A rush of cold outdoor air hit the life back into him, though he choked at how sharp it felt. His lungs ached like they had just broken the surface of water, and for a moment Marco just let himself _breathe_. It had been a big day, he mused. Things were changing. Things were scary. Things, no matter what, would be okay. They had to be.

He straightened up and looked out over the expanse of blank space before him. It was as though Trost had skinned the moon and lain it across the top of the hospital. It was lonely up here, Marco realised with another shudder, but at least his stomach had stopped churning.

He tucked his hands in his pockets and walked forwards, scuffing his shoes on the dusty ground. Jean had told him that the part of the moon the astronauts landed on had been dubbed ‘the Sea of Tranquillity’ due to how utterly empty and calm it was. That was how the roof felt to Marco, and god did he need something like that, sometimes.

He crossed to the railings that fringed the edge of the roof and looked out over the city, his city, and gave a heavy sigh. Like it or not, Trost was his own, and he had learnt to love it. No matter how much it screwed him over, he wouldn’t ever leave, even if he could. There was something of himself lost in Trost’s winding streets and dark alleyways, and he still had to find it. The roads below him continued to belch out commuters and traffic as the light began to fail, and eventually that little piece of him lost along the way would come back. He was getting close, day by day, but perhaps there would always be a part of him sacrificed to the city that had made him.

Parts, he knew, could be found in the places he loved. The park. The cemetery. Jean’s house. His apartment. The tattoo parlour. The coffee shop with the stupid name – what was it again? – all of them, huddled next to their neighbours like roosting birds. They seemed small enough to be touched from where Marco stood, to be picked up and slipped into his pocket for safekeeping. He sighed again. If only things were that simple.

“Marco!”

The voice jolted him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Jean heading towards him, the door to the stairway still ajar. He smiled in greeting and turned back to the view. “Sorry,” he said, “I just… had to take a walk.”

Jean squinted like he didn’t believe him, but didn’t push things. Instead, he moved to lean against the railings too, brushing their shoulders together as he looked over the city. He chewed on his lip absent-mindedly, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves instead of really looking at the view. Giving up the pretence, Jean turned to look at him, and Marco was hit again by just how bright Jean’s eyes seemed to be lately. “Remember when you were sick?” he asked. “When you were all feverish and weird?”

Marco smiled. “I called you River Boy for the first time.”

Jean tried to pretend the blush that sprung to his cheeks was down to the cold, but Marco knew better. “Y-yeah, then. Anyway, that night, out on the fire escape?”

“I didn’t have socks on,” Marco remembered, nodding. “You almost had a heart attack.”

“I was concerned you were gonna catch hypothermia, Marco, of course I almost had a heart attack.” Jean frowned, mentally shaking himself. “That’s not what I meant. I told you back then that the only thing I’d wanted was to get out of this city. To just… fly off somewhere that wasn’t so grey and loud and busy.”

Marco frowned, thinking back. Jean had said that with Hitch, he could have done it. They had a chance, small though it was, of getting out. Of breaking loose of the hold Trost had around them.  Marco bit his lip. “You said that even though you hated Hitch and she hated you, you could have gotten out if you worked hard enough.”

Jean had the grace to look awkward. “Yeah, well I was an idiot.”

“Still are an idiot.”

“Thanks.” Jean started chewing a thumbnail as he traced the winding roads with his eyes, and the cars that followed their trail. “It made me feel so small, standing out there on your creaky fire escape watching this… this world that was a size too big for me. Felt like there was no way I was ever gonna fit in it.”

Marco stepped closer, hoping that his body heat would warm Jean’s icy body.  “It’s a big world out there,” he agreed, “and sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming.”

 Jean nodded. He was working up to something. Marco let him sort the words out in his head before he spoke again. “Thing is, getting out of the city wouldn’t change much. I’d still be me, just in another place. But…with you… with the others… the world feels the right size. I fit.”

Marco’s smile widened. “Of course you do,” he said, nudging him gently with his shoulder. “You’re Jean Kirschtein, struggling artist and beautiful disaster. Trost was made for you.”

Jean snorted. “Thanks. Again. You’re really selling yourself here.”

“I try my best.”

Jean looked away again, his cheeks getting redder. “I’m trying to say that sometimes… sometimes I think the world doesn’t fit right around you. And that’s okay, but… but I don’t think you know it’s okay. You think it’s weak, or you’re failing me or failing Claudine or whoever. But you’re not. You’re just… you. And, y’know, I’m here. To listen.”

Marco bit his lip. The familiar lie of ‘ _it’s fine’_ died on his lips the moment he saw the look on Jean’s face.  It was fiercely hopeful, daring him to brush it aside and pretend it was nothing the way he had earlier. Marco sighed, and rested his head on Jean’s shoulder. “The dreams are getting to me a lot more than I thought,” he said eventually, closing his eyes as he did so. “It makes me feel sick, thinking about it. Thinking about what I could have done, what I could have _lost.._.”

Jean relaxed, as though it had been what he was waiting for all along – and maybe it was. He said nothing. His hand had found its way into Marco’s hair, and was making small massaging circles just above his ear. Marco almost purred at the feeling. “But you didn’t,” he said quietly. “Loads of things could have happened. But you didn’t lose anything.”

Marco smiled weakly. “I just got incredibly lucky with where the guy stuck his knife.” Jean’s fingers stiffened in his hair, and he knew that Jean was thinking about it too. He’d not been there in the early stages. He’d not seen Marco wake up in a haze and wonder what on earth was going on.

_Did Jean think about that a lot?_ Marco wondered. _Did he stay up late beating himself up over not coming over, or trying to call again?_

“I’m sorry,” Marco added, just in case. “I didn’t mean to say that. I want them to stop, I do, it’s just harder than I thought it would be.”

Jean’s hand relaxed. “Marco, look at me.”

Marco whined at the suggestion, but pulled away and looked at Jean anyway. He opened his mouth to say something, but Jean leaned in before he had the chance and kissed him, his hand trailing down to his jawline to cup it and bring him in closer. Marco’s surprise quickly dissolved – Jean barely ever took control, even now – and kissed him back, trailing his hands down to Jean’s waist and keeping them there. Jean’s lips no longer trembled when he kissed him; they had at first, like he was afraid they would pull away too soon and he’d be left chasing the air, but now they were steady, careful, exploring. It was like Jean was trying to kiss the fear out of Marco, second by second, and Marco was fine with letting him try.

When they broke the kiss Jean was panting, his breath warm on Marco’s face. Marco kissed him again, slow and gentle, and didn’t move far away when they stopped. “What was that for?” he murmured against Jean’s lips, grinning as Jean gave them a soft nip.

Jean’s eyes opened. “Don’t ever think that you’re not the strongest man I know,” he said.

Marco kissed him again but chastely this time, brushing their heads together and smiling like a lovestruck teenager when Jean butted him gently. “I’ll try to remember that.”

They kissed for a little while longer, the only noise the rush of their breath and the roaring of Marco’s heart in his ears, before Jean broke away. “Talk to someone,” he said, and they sounded a lot firmer than before. “I know I said you could face this your own way, but I was wrong. Talk to someone about the dreams. Someone qualified. They can help you. And that means a fucking lot coming from someone like me that hates talking about his problems.”

Marco sighed. Jean kissed him again. He reconsidered. “It can’t hurt to try…”

Jean smiled too, and kissed him softly, sweetly, a thank you without words. Marco still liked that they didn’t need to speak sometimes, that actions spoke far louder, and where Jean’s kisses were involved he was becoming fluent.

He only pulled away when he felt Jean shiver against him. “Cold, huh?”

“Fucking freezing.” Jean laughed. “If I get a cold because of you I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Marco shrugged. “You’re the hero of the hour. I’m sure Mikasa will let you get away with murder now.”

Jean snorted. “Well she did hug me and say thank you before I came to get you, so I guess that’s progress.”

“You might as well be a sibling now.”

Jean laughed again, though it was a little absent-minded. When Marco offered his hand, wiggling the fingers in encouragement, Jean brought out his phone. Marco frowned. “Oh yeah, who called you?”

Jean bit his lip. “My… my Mam.” The words sounded alien coming from him. Marco dropped his hand altogether. “She was… she was returning a call.”

Marco’s frown deepened. “Returning a call?” he parroted back.

Jean nodded, still biting his lip. When he next spoke, it came out in a rush. “Doyoulikevegetarianfood.”

Marco blinked. “Sorry?”

Jean huffed. He really was awkward now. “Do you… do you like vegetarian food?” he asked again, a little slower. It still took a while for Marco to decipher what he’d actually said.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t mind vegetarian food.”

“Mam’s gone vegetarian. She makes, like… sweet potato everything and puts kale in everything and makes lasagne out of mushrooms and leeks…I’ve never tried it but she says she’s a good cook.” Jean shrugged, still refusing to make eye contact. “Said she’d make something nice.”

Marco’s confusion suddenly lifted. Reality hit harder than any panic. “Are you… asking me to meet your mum?”

Jean shuffled his feet and nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Does she know we’re-?”

Jean bit his lip harder. “Might’ve mentioned I was seeing someone.”

“Oh?”

“Might’ve said it was serious.”

“O-oh.”

Marco knew he probably should have said something a little more eloquent. He probably should have asked when Jean had started talking to his mother again, but it wasn’t really his question to ask. Besides, his brain quickly stopped working when Jean stepped into his space again and rested their heads together, nuzzling softly. The boy standing with his fingers laced in Marco’s and a coy smile on his face wasn’t the same one who had asked him what the fuck his problem was after being pushed clear of a bus. He wasn’t the same one who had fallen into the river after a drunken night out. This version of Jean was growing, reaching up to the sunlight like a sapling after a long winter, and as Marco squeezed his hand and offered him a smile so wide it was painful, he caught himself thinking that he couldn’t have loved him more than he did at that moment.

“I’d love to come for dinner,” he said.

Jean grinned. “Really?”

“Really.” Marco’s smile faltered as a thought sprung to mind. “Though I’ve not… got a good track record with parents,” he said.

Jean shrugged. “That’s okay. Hyacinth and Emil seem to like you just fine.”

Marco bit his lip. “You know what I mean. There’s a reason Hyacinth practically adopted me.” Jean’s expression sobered. He watched their hands swing together in the way he seemed to like, his smile returning to his face inch by inch. It was small, meek – but it was there. The sight of it made Marco relax, just a little. “Are you scared?” he asked.

“Terrified,” Jean answered, honestly. “But I have you.” He tilted his head towards the fire escape door, back down into the hospital. “And I have them.” He looked down at their hands again, lips pursed. “And a clever person once told me that we look out for each other. We make our own families. And that’s what I’ve got now. That’s what _we’ve_ got. I-if Mam can’t see that, then…” He shrugged again. “Dunno. Guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Marco laughed and leaned in for another small kiss, breaking it before they had the chance to deepen it. “So long as you’re not jumping off it.”

“Oh, har de har.”

They turned back to the fire escape together, hands still together and fingers locked in something resembling a promise.

Marco had no idea what was waiting ahead of them; things changed and moved in the city like a galaxy, expanding outward and coming together again in a crunch and a blast, with pieces left to be picked up or sometimes nothing at all. Things were going to be tough. Things were going to break him to within an inch of falling apart. Things weren’t just the cookie cutter life he’d thought they would be when he stepped off the train from Jinae as a naïve seventeen year old.

They were a whirlwind of laughter, of staying up too late and taking bigoted old ladies’ shrubs and breaking into old observatories for the boy you love.

They were clouds of tears, of nights spent on sofas waiting for a ghost to walk through the door and of pills rattling around in pots.

But above all, he thought as he squeezed Jean’s hand and slipped through the door, they were so much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. This is Searching For Superman done. I'm emotional. I may be drinking wine. You can't prove anything. 
> 
> This has been a labour of love for three long years, and so much had happened since then; jobs, friendships, driving, writing projects... but I'll never regret picking up my pen and scrawling the notes for this plot back in the last few weeks of university.
> 
> There are so many people I want to thank: 
> 
> Lucy: you were there from the start, when I slipped into your Twitter DMs and asked, "hey, would a story about a Marco with HIV be too far?" You're a constant support and inspiration to me, and I'm just glad that you took one look at my suggestion in your DMs that day and said "go for it". Even if it tore you apart inside. You're welcome. You'll never know how much it means to me that you love and support my work. 
> 
> Hachi: you've dealt with my headcanon jams late into the night, the constant "I can't tell you" when you were begging me to reveal what Marco had, and you've also been there to pick me up when I feel like I can't write for anything. Thank you for being there, and thank you for being you.
> 
> Molly & Alice: you will probably never read this because you are my real life friends and haven't ever found SFS (and you never will) - but you've sat patiently by as I explain key plot points and ask your opinions on "how much cry is too much cry". I think you're proud of me for writing his behemoth of a gay fanfic, and I'm grateful for your support. 
> 
> The twitsquad: you've seen me complain, screenshot sentences I like and throw tantrums when the words just won't come. You've taken it all in good grace, and stayed excited for this even if you've moved fandoms. Thank you.
> 
> and to everyone who reads this: you will never know how much your feedback and love for this fic has affected me. It's given me the confidence to work on original stuff again, to talk to agents and start seriously considering trying to publish my stuff. It'll take time, but it's down to you. Thank you so, so much for every piece of fanart, every comment, every kudos, every...well, everything. You've been amazing. I couldn't ask for a better readership. 
> 
> For those of you who want more SFS-verse stuff, it might happen. For those of you who still fly a flag for jeanmarco, you'll be getting something in the new year. Thank you for everything, and don't be a stranger - my tumblr/twit is always open. Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. I love you all <3


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